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Minutes of the annual meeting of the State Literary and Historical Association

Proceedings and addresses of the fifteenth annual session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina

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PROCEEDINGS and ADDRESSES
OF THE
FIFTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION
OF THE
State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH
December 1-2, 1914
Compiled by
R. D. W. CONNOR
Secretary
RALEIGH
Edwards & Broughton Printing Co.
State Printers
1915
The North Carolina Historical Commission
J. Bryan Grimes, Chairman, Raleigh.
W. J. Peele, Raleigh. M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill.
Thomas M. Pittman, Henderson. ' D. H. Hill, Raleigh.
R. D. W. Connor, Secretary, Raleigh.
Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association
1914.
President Archibald Henderson, Chapel Hill.
First Vice-President Miss Mary Shannon Smith, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Frank Nash, Hillsboro.
Third Vice-President W. B. McKoy, Wilmington.
Secretary-Treasurer R. D. W. Connor, Raleigh.
Executive Committee.
W. K. Boyd, Durham. Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
James F. Royster, Chapel Hill. Maurice G. Fulton, Davidson.
Mrs. Margaret Busbee Shipp, Raleigh.
1915.
President Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
First Vice-President Miss Minnie W. Leatherman, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President J. G. de R. Hamilton, Chapel Hill.
Third Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh, N. C.
Secretary-Treasurer R. D. W. Connor, Raleigh.
Executive Committee.
John F. Bruton, Wilson. Howard Rondthaler, Winston-Salem.
A. W. McLean, Lumberton. T. M. Pittman, Henderson.
J. L. Chambers, Charlotte.
PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
ASSOCIATION.
"The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of our State
literature and history;
"The encouragement of public and school libraries;
"The establishment of an historical museum;
"The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people;
"The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina;
and
—
"The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising
generations."
ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES.
All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the
Association. There are two classes of members: "Regular Members," paying
one dollar a year, and "Sustaining Members," paying five dollars a year.
RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
(Organized October, 1900.)
Fiscal Paid up
Years. Presidents. Secretaries. Membership.
1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150
1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139
1902-1903 W. L. Poteat George S. Fraps 73
1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127
1904-1905 Robert W. Winston '.Clarence Poe 109
1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185
1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301
1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273
1908-1909 Junius Davis Clarence Poe 311
1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440
1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425
1911-1912 R. D. W. Connor Clarence Poe 479
1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476
1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435
AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUR
1905
John Charles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as
"Songs, Merry and Sad." (Presentation by Theodore Roosevelt.)
1906
Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier." (Presentation by Fabius
H. Busbee.)
1907
—
Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina."
(Presentation by Francis D. Winston.)
1908
Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina." (Presenta-tion
by Thomas Nelson Page.)
1909
Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe." (Presentation by Am-bassador
James Bryce.)
1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Carolina
History." (Presentation by T. W. Bickett.)
1911
Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw: His Life and
Works." (Presentation by Lee S. Overman.)
1912
Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up." (Presenta-tion
by Walter H. Page.)
1913
Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders." (Presentation by
Maurice G. Fulton.)
1914—J. G. de R. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina." Pres-entation
by W. K. Boyd.)
WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE-SUCCESSFUL
MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT.
1. Rural libraries.
2. "North Carolina Day" in the schools.
3. The North Carolina Historical Commission.
4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall (to be erected soon).
5. Fire-proof State Library Building and Hall of Records.
6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record.
7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated.
8. The Patterson Memorial Cup.
9. Lecture Extension Work started in leading cities and towns.
10. A program of Library Extension Work begun.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Session 7
General Session:
The New North State. By Archibald Henderson 15
Some Argentine Ideas. By R. S. Naon 26
Conference on County History:
Opening Remarks. By Archibald Henderson 39
A New Type of County History. By W. K. Boyd 41
The Vital Study of a County. By E. C. Branson 50
How Can We Secure the Writing of County Histories.
By Miss Adelaide Fries 54
How Can We Secure the Writing of County Histories.
By W. C. Jackson. 56
Conference on North Carolina Literature:
The Projected History of North Carolina Literature.
By Archibald Henderson 59
Henry Jerome Stockard. By J. Y. Joyner 61
The North Carolina Historians. By Stephen B. Weeks 71
North Carolina Fiction. By T. P. Harrison 87
Ballad-Literature in North Carolina. By Frank C. Brown 92
North Carolina Poetry. By Ernest L. Starr 103
North Carolina Oratory. By J. M. McConnell Ill
North Carolina Bibliography for the Year.
By Miss Minnie W. Leatherman 116
Presentation of Gifts to the State. By Archibald Henderson 122
O. Henry Evening:
O. Henry. By C. Alphonso Smith 126
Presentation of the O. Henry Memorial to the State.
By Archibald Henderson 139
Acceptance of O. Henry Memorial. By Governor Locke Craig 141
Members, 1914-1915 142
MINUTES
Proceedings and Addresses of the Fifteenth Annual Session
of the State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH, DECEMBER 1-2, 1914
Tuesday, December 1
—
Afternoon Session.
The Fifteenth Annual Session of the State Literary and Historical
Association of North Carolina was called to order in the Hall of the
House of Kepresentatives, Tuesday afternoon, December 1, 1914, at
3 :30 o'clock, with President Henderson in the chair. President Hen-derson,
after brief opening remarks, announced that the program for
the afternoon session was a Conference on County History. The pro-gram
as carried out was as follows:
1. Opening Address, by Archibald Henderson.
2. "A New Type of County History," by W. K. Boyd.
3. "The Vital Study of the County," by E. C. Branson.
4. "How to Secure the Writing of County Histories." Discussions by
W. C. Jackson, Miss Adelaide Fries, and T. M. Pittman.
At the conclusion of these papers there was a general discussion in which
several members participated.
Hon. Francis D. Winston thereupon offered the following resolutions
which, after debate, were adopted
:
Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the President of this
Association to memorialize the General Assembly at its coming session to
make an annual appropriation of not less than $2,500, to be expended under
the direction of the North Carolina Historical Commission in the work of
advising with municipal and county officials relative to the proper care,
arrangement and preservation of the public archives and records in their
charge, and of making such records and archives accessible for historical
purposes.
Resolved, That the Executive Committee take immediate steps to organize
County Historical Societies, and that they enlist the cooperation of the De-partment
of History in the University and in the colleges of the State in
arranging a plan for securing a history of each county in North Carolina.
Tuesday, December 1
—
Evening Session.
The session was called to order by President Henderson at 8 o'clock
in the auditorium of Meredith College. President Henderson delivered
his inaugural address on "The New ISTorth State," at the conclusion of
8 Fifteenth Annual Session
which lie presented Governor Craig, who introduced the next speaker
as follows:
We have the honor this evening of having as our guest a statesman who,
though young in years, has made a world-impression in history. He is a
thinker and a scholar. He has done great things for his country, and I
hope that he may continue to guide his great nation. He has not only ren-dered
great service to his own people, but he has rendered great service to
this nation which entitles him to our everlasting gratitude, for he was one
of the arbitrators which kept this nation at peace with Mexico and at peace
with all.
He comes from the greatest nation that has ever existed in South America.
In this hemisphere there are two great republics, one on the Northern con-tinent
and one on the Southern. His nation stands among the foremost for
peace, progress, and civilization.
The destiny of the United States and South America is indissoluble. The
friendly relations between the republics of North and South America not
only means the finest of commercial advantage, but it means the finest de-velopment
that has come to the human race. The day is coming when the
Latin people of the South and the Anglo-Saxon of the North will realize that
their destiny is one to be worked out in brotherhood between these countries.
The distinguished statesman is the foremost representative of the Latin
republics. I have the honor of presenting the Ambassador of the greatest
Southern republic to the greatest Northern republic.
The topic of Ambassador JsTaon's address was "Some Argentine
Ideas." At the conclusion of Dr. Naon's address he was unanimously
elected an honorary member of the Literary and Historical Association.
President Henderson then presented Dr. W. K. Boyd who had been
selected to announce the award of the William Houston Patterson Me-morial
Cup for 1914, saying:
The feature which concludes our program this evening has come to be a
classic event in the North Carolina year. This is the award of the William
Houston Patterson Memorial Cup, the beautifully conceived memorial in
honor of her father, by Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, of Winston-Salem.
In past years, the award of this cup has called national attention to the
works of literature being produced in the State of North Carolina. This cup
is awarded each year to that resident of the State who, during the twelve
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the
year of the award, has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard
to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius.
I take pleasure in calling upon the distinguished historical student, Dr.
William K. Boyd, of Trinity College, who, as representative of the Committee
will make the announcement of the award.
In announcing the award Dr. Boyd said
:
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
Every man of letters in North Carolina who makes local conditions the
subject of his art is in a double sense a benefactor; first, for consecrating
his gifts to immortalizing Tar Heeldom; second, for carrying out his work
State Literary and Historical Association. 9
under the adverse conditions referred to in the presidential address. There-fore
the half dozen authors who have in the past year written books about
North Carolina deserve the laurels of patriots, and on behalf of the Patter-son
Memorial Cup Committee and the Literary and Historical Association
I wish to express our appreciation of their efforts.
Under the adverse conditions referred to by the President, it was indeed
gracious of Mrs. Patterson to establish the Patterson Memorial Cup. Her
patronage insures a careful examination of all books written by residents
of the State and publicity to at least one of them.
Before announcing the award, may I relate a bit of academic history?
Higher education in the United States has been revolutionized since the
year 1870. Professional schools of arts and sciences have been organized
and large universities have come into existence. About the year 1875 an
old aristocratic college in the city of New York felt the new impulse. It
established a chair of Political Science and Constitutional Law. To fill it
was called a man who was Southern by birth, but who had received his col-legiate
education in New England and his professional training in Germany.
He brought to this country those conceptions of the State and of sovereignty
which characterize the political science of modern Germany. According to
his theories sovereignty in the United States has always been in the people;
the nation is older than the States, and manifestations of State rights senti-ments
in our history have been entirely without constitutional warrant. A
more national interpretation of our history can hardly be conceived.
After a few years a young man from New Jersey applied at the college for
a higher degree. His essay was on the Constitution during the Civil War
and Reconstruction. In it he maintained that during the conflict the Con-stitution
was not only violated by executive and legislative measures, but
that it was superseded by war powers, and that during Reconstruction cer-tain
principles of constitutional law were also ignored. In other words, in
establishing nationality, its written charter was violated. There was a
memorable examination; the Dean found fault, and even demanded that a
new edition of the essay be published with corrections. The man from New
Jersey stood his ground, and won the day.
For there was academic liberty in the institution. A few years later that
student was called to his alma mater to teach political theory, then history.
As the institution grew into a great university he offered graduate instruc-tion
in the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This was about the
time that the sons of those who fought in the gray line and the blue were
arriving at maturity. A number of them were attracted by the new field
of historical investigation opened up. Two results followed. One was that
the history department of Columbia became a clearing house for men of
opposite persuasions, a twilight zone in which the most ultra-nationalists
and the most unreconstructed rebels found a mutual human interest and
sympathy. The other result has been the publication of a series of volumes
on the Reconstruction Period in the South; a history of Reconstruction in
Mississippi, one of Georgia during the period, and similar studies of Ala-bama,
Texas, and Florida. These are not essays but stout volumes. They
make the largest contribution to any one period of Southern history.
Thirteen years ago there joined the Columbia group a graduate of the Uni-versity
of the South, with tar on his heels. After the first year he began the
10 Fifteenth Annual Session
investigation of his native State during the Reconstruction period. For
twelve years he has given his best efforts to the task and last summer he
published his results entitled, "Reconstruction in North Carolina." His
work is notable for the following qualities:
In point of style it is equaled in our historical literature only by the work
of Dr. Hawks, who wrote prior to the war. In selection and organization
of material it is modern in tone, combining the topical and the chronological
methods. It is also a contribution to national as well as State history, for
it treats of constitutional, economic, and political movements that were not
confined to North Carolina. His volume also belongs to a notable series, the
"Columbia University Studies in Economics, History, and Public Law."
And now, as the author is too Roman in his modesty to appear on this
stage, I announce that the Patterson Cup this year is awarded to Dr. J. G.
de R. Hamilton for his excellent book, "Reconstruction in North Carolina."
The President then declared the meeting adjourned.
Following the regular session the members of the Association and
their guests were tendered a reception in the parlors of Meredith Col-lege,
by the Woman's Club of Raleigh.
Wednesday, Decembek 2
—
Morning Session.
The session was called to order in the Hall of the House of Repre-sentatives
by President Henderson, at ten o'clock. The President an-nounced
that the subject of the program for this session was "North
Carolina Literature." Papers were read on the following subjects
:
1. "Projected History of North Carolina Literature," by Archibald Hen-derson.
2. "Henry Jerome Stockard; An Appreciation," by J. Y. Joyner.
3. "North Carolina Historical Writings," by Stephen B. Weeks.
4. "North Carolina Fiction," by Thomas P. Harrison.
5. "North Carolina Ballads," by Frank C. Brown.
6. "North Carolina Poetry," by Ernest Starr.
Dr. Maurice G. Fulton announced that Dr. J. M. McConnell, who
had prepared a paper on "JNTorth Carolina Oratory," had been un-avoidably
prevented from attending the meeting, and moved that Dr.
McConnell's paper be published in the Proceedings. The motion was
carried.
President Henderson then presented several gifts to the Association.
His address in making these presentations has been printed elsewhere
in the Proceedings.
At the conclusion of President Henderson's address the following
resolutions were offered and unanimously adopted
:
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North
Carolina extend, through the Secretary, grateful thanks in token of their
State Literary and Historical Association. 11
appreciation of the following gifts of literary memorials to the Hall of
History:
1. To Mrs. Henry Jerome Stockard for the autograph poem, signed, by the
late Henry Jerome Stockard, it being the poem dedicated to the Women of
the Confederacy;
2. To Mr. W. L. McNeill, of Wagram, N. C, for the autograph poem, "Told
On," of his brother, John Charles McNeill;
3. To Mrs. William Sidney Porter, for the portrait of William Sidney
Porter.
4. To Mr. Arthur W. Page, Editor of The World's Work, for some sheets
of the original manuscript of one of O. Henry's stories.
5. To Miss Van Vleck, of Winston-Salem, for a letter, and to Miss Marshall
for an autograph poem, of John Henry Boner.
6. To the Misses Margaret J. and Martha A. Steele, of Carlisle, for the let-ters
of Elizabeth Maxwell Steele.
Whereas, The North Carolina Library Commission has rendered great
service to the schools and rural population of the State by the operation of
traveling, debate and other package libraries, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association commend the
work of the Library Commission and aid it through its Legislative Committee
in securing a larger appropriation for the extension of its service along
these lines.
Whereas, The American Peace Conference agreed at its session in Rich-mond
last December that each State should establish some memorial to
mark the Century of Peace among the English-speaking peoples under the
Treaty of Ghent,
And, Whereas, Sir Walter Raleigh was selected as the most suitable char-acter
for this purpose in North Carolina,
Therefore, be it resolved by this Association, That we heartily commend
Senator Lee S. Overman for his timely introduction of a bill into the United
States Senate, for an appropriation for a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh to be
erected in this city; and we will gratefully appreciate his efforts to secure
its passage during the coming session of Congress, so that we can, at least,
lay the corner-stone in 1915.
And Resolved, That our senior Senator and all Congressmen from North
Carolina are hereby requested and urged to support this measure.
Resolved, That this Association heartily endorse Senate Bill No. 2545, in-troduced
into the "United States Senate by Senator Overman, it being a bill
for the execution of a suitable and creditable painting, depicting the baptism
of Virginia Dare, the first known celebration of a Protestant Christian sacra-ment
on American soil; and urge our Senators and Representatives in Con-gress
to support the same.
Whereas, The members of this Association have heard with sincerest sor-row
of the illness at his home in Wilson of Hon. F. A. Woodard, who, during
the fifteen years of the history of the Literary and Historical Association,
has never before been absent from its annual session, and has at all times
displayed an earnest, unselfish and wise interest in its work, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to express to Mr. Woodard our
regret at his absence, our sympathy in his illness, and our sincere hopes for
the speedy recovery of his health.
12 Fifteenth Annual Session
Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to extend to the Trustees and
Faculty of Meredith College the thanks and appreciation of the State Liter-ary
and Historical Association for the use of the auditorium of Meredith
College for its evening sessions; and to express to the Woman's Club of
Raleigh its appreciation of their courtesy in tendering a reception to its
members and guests.
The following reports of the Guilford County Historical Society and
of the Randolph Historical Society were then presented to the Associa-tion
by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt
:
GUILFORD COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
The Guilford County Historical Association has had no meeting again
this year.
Two papers have been prepared and we have received some valuable old
letters, also a most interesting banner which was presented to the Greens-boro
Guards by the ladies of the town in 1839, the presentation being re-corded
in the Patriot of that day.
The Greensboro Public Library, in which the collection of the society is
kept, has been most fortunate this year in a gift of four portraits, all emi-nent
citizens of Guilford whose descendants have made this very generous
donation to the home of their fathers: Colonel Julius A. Gray, Governor
John M. Morehead, Governor Jonathan Worth, and Governor A. M. Scales.
The homes of Governor Morehead and Governor Scales are still standing
in Greensboro. Governor Worth's early life was all spent in Guilford, though
he was elected Governor from Randolph, where he settled in 1824. These
four portraits were unveiled in the library with appropriate exercises on the
evening of June 6, 1914.
The banner of 1839 was displayed at the time by the Guilford Historical
Association with two other political Greensboro banners of 1840, making an
exhibit of especial interest, since all three were used in the memorable cam-paign
of Morehead and Harrison in 1840. The society contemplates a revival
of its work during the next year.
RANDOLPH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
On the 30th of May, 1914, a dozen or more people met in the County Super-intendent's
office, and organized a society to be known as The Randolph
County Historical Society. It elected for its President, Mrs. Numa A. Thorn-burg,
and Hon. W. C. Hammer, Vice-President; T. F. Bulla, Secretary; Miss
Linnie Shamburger, Historian, and Mrs. S. L. Hayworth, Treasurer. It was
decided at this meeting to meet annually, and discuss historical events rela-tive
to Randolph County. A great deal of interest was manifested in this
meeting, and the outlook is good for interesting discussions in the future.
It was also decided to collect old books, and manuscripts of any nature, and
deposit them in a room in the courthouse known as the Historical Room.
So far, we have a membership of over thirty-five, and by strong effort it
can be increased considerably. The membership fee is fifty cents.
At the meeting held last May, Dr. F. E. Asbury read a paper on the birth-place
of Andrew Jackson. A paper was read prepared by Dr. S. E. Henley
before he died, giving at some length the history of the old plank road, built
three-quarters of a century ago.
State Literary and Historical Association. 13
It is our hope to build up a strong society in Randolph County, and we
would be glad to cooperate with the State Historical Society. We would be
glad to have any suggestions that will aid us in the future.
W. C. Hammer, editor of the Asheboro Courier, is collecting data for a
future history of the county.
Wednesday, December 2
—
Evening Session.
The session was called to order at eight o'clock, in the auditorium of
Meredith College, by the President who presented Miss Minnie W.
Leatherman who read a report of North Carolina Bibliography for the
year. At the conclusion of Miss Leatherman's paper President Hender-son
presented Dr. C. Alphonso Smith in the following words:
Ladies and Gentlemen: We are gathered here tonight to memorialize in
deathless bronze a great literary genius of the New North State. In this
hour of the sublimation of State pride, of the vast awakening of national
consciousness in our commonwealth, an episode typical of this new era is
the erection of a national memorial, executed by a great national sculptor,
Lorado Taft, in honor of William Sidney Porter, endeared to all North Caro-linians,
world-renowned, under the nom-de-guerre of "O. Henry." In the
literary and cultural history of North Carolina the occasion is epochal—for
now, for the first time in all our history, have the people of our State united
in the patriotic task of honoring, in enduring form at the capital of the
commonwealth, native artistic and literary genius. I venture now to ex-press
the fervent hope that this event may prove the forerunner of many
similar tributes to the artistic and literary genius of our people. May there
come to us, as the years flee forward, a communal consciousness that cul-ture
must march hand in hand with agriculture, art with industry, litera-ture
with science in the perfected civilization of the future.
There is something finely and touchingly apposite in this ceremony here
tonight. This memorial is to be accepted in behalf of the State by her
chief executive, a citizen of the very town and county, Asheville and Bun-combe,
where William Sidney Porter sleeps forever in the cool, enfolding
arms of death. And the genius of ''0. Henry" is to be celebrated by a fellow
native of the very town and county of his own nativity, Greensboro and
Guilford.
I rejoice in the opportunity to present to you a great son of North Caro-lina,
distinguished man of letters,—a scholar who as academic ambassador
has borne the message of American culture to the great German empire, the
official biographer of O. Henry, the lifelong friend of William Sidney
Porter—Charles Alphonso Smith.
At the conclusion of Dr. Smith's address the President called for the
report of the Nominating Committee, who reported the following nomi-nations
for 1914-15:
President Clarence Poe
First Vice-president Miss Minnie W. Leatherman
Second Vice-president J. G. de R. Hamilton
Third Vice-president S. A. Ashe
Secretary-treasurer. R. D. W. Connor
14 Fifteenth Annual Session
The nominations were confirmed. The session then adjourned to the
rooms of the North Carolina Historical Commission, where the exer-cises
in connection with the presentation of the "O. Henry Memorial"
were held. The Memorial was presented to the State, in behalf of the
State Literary and Historical Association, by President Henderson.
At the conclusion of his speech the tablet was unveiled by Miss Mar-garet
Porter, after which it was accepted, in behalf of the State, by
Governor Locke Craig.
The President then announced that the session of the Literary and
Historical Association for 1914 was adjourned sine die.
After the adjournment the members of the Association attended a
reception in the rooms of the North Carolina Historical Commission.
State Literary and Historical Association. 15
GENERAL SESSION
The New North State
By Archibald Henderson, President of the State Literary and Historical
Association, Raleigh, on the Evening of December 1, 1914.
In his notorious "History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia
and North Carolina/' which was run in the year 1728, the witty Wil-liam
Byrd of Westover hazarded the ironical query: "Considering
how fortune delights in bringing great things out of small, who knows
but Carolina may, one time or another, come to be the seat of some
great empire?" As I glance back over the two tumultuous centuries
which have elapsed since Byrd ventured that ironical query, and think
of the long, long way we have traveled since that primitive, barren
time, I cannot but conclude that "William Byrd, all unwittingly, was
something more than "the idle singer of an empty day." That "great
empire," of which he so ironically spoke—has indeed found its seat in
this ancient commonwealth of Carolina. It is in the new time that
Carolina has come to be the seat of a great empire of democracy—
a
democracy of culture and of the human spirit.
In the strange, sad epic of the silent South, North Carolina can justly
claim the authority that springs from the motherhood of American
liberty. At the very moment when Byrd was running that dividing
line betwixt North Carolina and Virginia, the borderers were eager to
be included within the bounds of North Carolina, "as there they paid
no tribute to God or Caesar." Those epic ships of Raleigh, sailing west-
Ward over unknown seas 2nd beaching at last their keels upon the golden
sands of Roanoke, bore in their bosoms a breed of men fired with the
divine spark which in that England of the spacious days of Elizabeth
flamed up in rugged prose and in soaring, immortal verse. The breed
of men who settled here bore in their right hand a genius for civiliza-tion
and an indomitable pride of race; and in their left hand an in-flexible
steadfastness and a common sense as firm as adamant. In the
struggle for existence which they were compelled to wage, the taming
of nature, the conquest of a savage foe, there was bred in them a mighty
resourcefulness and the grim hardihood of self-reliance. Our legacy
from a century of pioneers is a passion for successful self-expression,
for efficiency, and for creative conquest. How shorn of a great measure
of distinction and greatness would be this American nation, in its pio-neer
days and crude beginnings, if bereft of the pioneering genius of
16 Fifteenth Annual Session
Daniel Boone, the love of liberty of the eloquent William Hooper, the
prophetic insight of that herald of culture, William R. Davie, the legal
wisdom of James Iredell, the granite conservatism of Nathaniel Macon,
the flaming patriotism of Andrew Jackson, the new Americanism of
Thomas Hart Benton. How impoverished would be the early annals of
our country if there were blotted out the memory of Moore's Creek
Bridge, of Guilford Court House, of Kings Mountain ; of the resistance
to the Stamp Act at Wilmington, the patriotism of Mecklenburg, the
statesmanship at Halifax, the definitive salvation of the vast trans-
Alleghany region by the pioneers of Transylvania. Out of North Caro-lina,
the fountain source of American liberty, welled up the streams
of creative contribution which have helped to make this nation great
the inflexible spirit which knows no compromise, the passionate belief
in liberty and democracy, and the unchanging faith in the worth and
dignity of average humanity.
Midway in her career—a career memorable for national statesman-ship,
continental thinking and purity of thought in public service
—
a dark disaster fell upon the South. Following that tragic national
crisis, when the South in the dimness of anguish beheld the loss of
wealth, the abolition of property, the violation of the very sanctities
of her civilization, this people sternly set themselves to the task of re-pairing
those fallen fortunes and rebuilding that civilization upon
broader and more universal outlines. In the era since the War between
the States the South has achieved a reasonable prosperity distinguished
by its universal diffusion, and has devoted its energies to the education
of the common man to the tasks of leadership in all the avenues of an
advancing civilization.
It was in the earlier grim stages of that era of civilization-rebuild-ing—
the era of the slow emergence of the average man from the pres-sure
of economic necessity and the blight of arrested cultural develop-ment—
that the South temporarily relaxed her hold upon the reins of
national government. Only a decade ago the late Charles B. Aycock
though belying the statement in his own brilliant, tragic career—re-gretfully
acknowledged that at that moment the people of the South
"had less effect upon the thought and action of the nation than at any
period of our history." At that time it was almost literally true that
Southern men wielded but slight influence in the final settlement of the
graver problems of our national destiny. The thinking of the South
was not an appreciable factor in the councils of the nation. The old
aristocracy, with its transcendant leadership of individualism, had
passed forever from the national stage; and the new democracy, fumb-ling
with the complex tools of a newer communism, had not yet wrought
out completely the figures of national leadership.
State Literary and Historical Association. 17
The election of Woodrow Wilson and the quindeeennial anniversary
of Gettysburg marked the transit of an era. "A complete change/' as
Mr. George Harvey recently said, "involving after many years the resto-ration
to power in large measure of this great section has been effected
without causing so much as a ripple of apprehension. Surely it is a
fact of mighty significance that the South resumes virtual control of the
United States after barely fifty years, without evoking from the most
rabid partisan so much as a suspicion of the patriotism or fidelity of
any one of her statesmen." Surely it is a fact of almost miraculous
fitness that, in this dramatic resumption by the South of the control of
our national destinies, North Carolina should play a predominant role.
It is with a sense of conscious elation, no less profound that it is sub-dued,
that we, the citizens of this ancient commonwealth, reflect that
American history can furnish no authentic parallel to the present epo-chal
contribution of North Carolina to the life of the nation. In this
great era of national responsibility and national peril the country
breathes in safety with Josephus Daniels maintaining North Carolina's
great traditions in the navy established by Branch, Badger, Graham,
and Dobbin; with Houston setting new standards of business efficiency
and practical statesmanship for national agriculture; with Simmons
the leader of a Senate; Kitchin the destined floor-leader of the House;
and native and adopted sons like Claxton and Holmes and Osborn
effectively ministering to the educational, industrial, and financial needs
of a nation. In this, North Carolina's hour—the reward of traditional
fidelity to principle in public life, of enlarging social sympathy, and of
invincible faith in democracy—there seems to operate a noble species
of compensatory justice. The nation once more turns for guidance to
the venerable commonwealth of North Carolina, and to the South, the
ancient mother of national leadership.
Do you then realize that this, the age in which we live
—
today—heralds
the golden age of North Carolina and the South ? As we stand upon the
threshold of this new era, there must come to all of us a sense of joyous
elation, a leaping of the blood, that it is given to us to live at such a
time and in such a country. While our sister republic of Mexico is
racked with the dire dissensions of civil strife, which the unselfish devo-tions
of this nation have watchfully and patiently sought to allay;
while Europe is a cosmic holocaust of flame and blood and steel ; while
the commerce of belligerent nations is suffering from partial paralysis
and the voice of famine utters to our heeding ears its grim and tragic
petition—America stands firm for peace, for progress, for civilization,
for humanity. Supreme engineering genius has cleft in twain giant
Culebra and recalcitrant Panama ; and today the lock gates at Gatun,
18 Fifteenth Annual Session
Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores hospitably fling wide the giant portals
of the isthmus to the argosies of commerce, to the trade of the South,
the nation, and the world. As President Wilson said in his memorable
address at Mobile : "I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imagina-tions
have been filled with the significance of the tides of commerce.
These great tides which have been running along parallels of latitude
will now swing Southward athwart parallels of longitude, and that open-ing
gate of the Isthmus of Panama will open to the world a commerce
she has never known before—a commerce of intelligence, of thought and
sympathy between North and South, and the Latin-American States
which, to their disadvantage, have been cut off the main lines will now
be on the main lines.7
' The section sure to receive the greatest develop-ment
as the result of the opening of the canal is the section east of the
Rocky Mountains. The steamer which leaves the South Atlantic sea-board
or a gulf port will steer a straight course from the Panama Canal
to all of the countries on the west coast of South America, The saving
in time, distance, and cost of transportation assures a vastly stimulated
commerce and the interchange of all commodities between the South and
the countries on the Western and Southern coasts of South America. A
happy augury of the increasing reciprocal friendliness and expanding
intercommunication of trade between North and South America is the
presence of our honored guest of this evening, his Excellency, Romulo S.
Naon, the Ambassador of the great republic of Argentina.
The South is America's present land of promise. Here upon our own
soil will be undertaken the next supreme experiment in the life of the
nation. This will be the scene of the next great act in the American
drama of industrial expansion. The thought which gives me comfort,
when I reflect upon the future of the South, is the consciousness that
in this era of expanding wealth and; a pervasive industrialism, the
Southern people still tenaciously hold to those high yet simple realities
which, throughout our history, have won the confidence and the faith
of a nation.
In the hearts of all of us, I dare say, there is a deep, abiding affec-tion
and reverence for the virtues of a people who, throughout an his-toric
past, have given to North Carolina the rich, mellow name of the
Old North State. I sense those ancient virtues as a fragrant breath
from some distant garden of old-fashioned flowers—a full-blooded pa-rochialism
redeemed by the abiding love of Christian faith, of family,
of fireside ; an inflexible integrity which put love of the truth and pas-sion
for the making of men above love of place and passion for the
making of money; a rugged provincialism which had its roots firmly
fixed in a love of naturalness and a scorn for all pretense; a granite
State Literary and Historical Association. 19
conservatism which cherished tradition and ever looked with stern dis-favor
upon the new and the empiric. This is the Old North State
—
always fighting for her rights while neglecting her interests; generous,
reckless, romantic, improvident, unpretentious, chivalrous, "brave. In
our hearts is enshrined the figure of this most venerable, this most
American of all the sisterhood of American commonwealths—the un-pretentious,
homespun, yet infinitely lovable Kip Van Winkle of the
States.
Tonight, my friends, I give you the New North State. From out our
past have come the old Eoman virtues ; into our future shall go the new
American virtues of the new age—an enlarged communal conscious-ness;
a deeper sense of local pride which expresses itself, not in voicing
a glorification of the past, but in putting the shoulder hard to the
wheel of civic progress ; a strenuous common effort for the attainment
of a new freedom, individual, political, and social—for women as well
as for men ; and a passionate, a relentless eagerness for the building of a
new and higher civilization. "We are meeting within the very week
simply eloquent in its title, Community-service Week—a type of the
seven labors of the new Hercules of an aroused civic consciousness
the prophetic vision of that splendid type of the new social publicist,
Edward K. Graham; aided by the practical wisdom of an agricultural
sociologist, the popular leader, Clarence Poe; and happily legislated
into permanence through the fiat of a progressive, forward-looking
Governor, Locke Craig. Only a few weeks ago patriotic, liberty-loving
women of North Carolina appropriately met in the precincts of Meck-lenburg
to write the political charter of a new declaration of inde-pendence.
Out of the fullness of our new life here have gone to other
nations the heralds of American culture. The first Southern scholar
selected to go as Roosevelt Professor, as academic ambassador of cul-ture,
to the German nation, is the distinguished orator of tomorrow
night, Charles Alphonso Smith; and when President Wilson needed a
man big enough for the biggest diplomatic post in the country's gift,
he called upon a great publisher and the editor of our most distinctively
national magazine, Walter H. Page, who is now enjoying the confidence
and winning the plaudits of all in his dexterous management of the
innumerable complex issues evoked by the problems of a titanic Euro-pean
war. Last year we memorialized here North Carolina's first man
of letters of large calibre, whose "Poe's Cottage at Eordham" is part
of the immortal heritage of American and English song, John Henry
Boner; tomorrow morning is to be memorialized the lamented Henry
Jerome Stockard, loved citizen of Raleigh so recently passed away
a poet whose powerful pseans of praise of his section won for him the
20 Fifteenth Annual Session
enviable title of "The Voice of North Carolina." Tomorrow night
we shall gather again in this hall to pay the perfect tribute of art
and praise to North Carolina's first great figure in world-literature
—
after Poe and Hawthorne the greatest master of the short-story
America has ever produced—William Sidney Porter, affectionately
cherished in the hearts and memories of millions under the quaint
pseudonym of "O. Henry." Indeed, when I reflect upon the richness,
variety and texture of the gifts of this New North State to America
and to the world, I am driven to paraphrase the impressive words of
Milton : "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant State rous-ing
herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible
locks; as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her un-dazzled
eyes at the full midday beam, while the whole noise of timor-ous
and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter
about, amazed at what she means."
I would not have you think. that, in this chorus of praise, there is no
room in my mind for reservations or for the acknowledgment of grave
deficiencies in our artistic and literary culture. Indeed, the latest re-searches
of science compel the belief that genius is not the result of the
evolution of the masses of the people, but is a giant variation from the
common level of our species.
Whether or not we acknowledge that genius is a spontaneous giant
variation, a sporadic birth of energy not built up from the simple to
the complex, certainly it must be recognized that art, as a factor of
civilization, is an incomparable means of widening intellectual and
spiritual horizons and promoting the cause of culture. It cannot be
denied that the measure of a people's advance in the fine arts is the
measure of their distance from the brutes. Art is not merely an aux-iliary
to civilization; art is almost synonymous with civilization itself.
"Life without art," as Kuskin says, "is mere brutality." And no matter
how remarkable have been the "spontaneous, giant variations from the
common level of our species," it behooves us to take account of that
precious "common level" which, in a true sense, is the measure of civili-zation
in a democracy.
"What is the problem of culture?" asks the remarkable artist and
astute philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. His answer is unimpeachable
:
"To live and to work is the noblest strivings of one's nation and of
humanity. Not only, therefore, to receive and to learn, but to live. To
free one's age and people from wrong tendencies, to have one's ideal
before one's eyes."
Much as I regret to admit it, long and patient observation compels me
to acknowledge that here in the South of the past, here in North Caro-
State Literary and Historical Association. 21
lina, so far as art and literature are concerned, we have not lived and
worked in the noblest strivings of one's nation and of humanity. In lit-erature
and art, for more than a century, we have received; even in a
sense we have learned ; but we have not lived. There be much truth in
the witty definition that penury is the wages of the pen. And at the
Annual Banquet in London of the Royal Literary Fund for the Relief
of Necessitous Authors, Mr. Walter Page recently evoked a chorus of
dissent to his statement : "From the viewpoint of mere barnyard
gumption it is absurd for anybody to start to spend his life writing.
Gambling is more likely to yield a steady income. It is an absurd
career and a foolish foolhardy business. No man has a right to take
it up who can avoid doing so." In making these observations, which
must be taken with a liberal pinch of salt, Mr. Page was undoubtedly
making a humorous personal confession. I may go even further and
hazard the guess that he was thinking of North Carolina. It is a re-markable
commentary upon our civilization that, so far as my knowl-edge
goes, no man or woman in North Carolina, with the omission of
journalists, has ever succeeded in earning, or even attempted to earn,
a livelihood solely through the medium of the pen of the literary artist.
Thus far in our history we have produced no distinguished painter,
no great sculptor, no famous dramatist. In his study on "The Geo-graphical
Distribution of American Genius," published during the pres-ent
year, Professor Scott Nearing does not even consider the State of
North Carolina as a separate geographical unit; and concludes that,
of persons of eminence in the United States today, "an overwhelming
proportion seem to have been born in that section of the northeastern
United States bounded by the Mason and Dixon line on the South, the
Mississippi-Missouri River on the West." I never think of the litera-ture
of my native State that I do not recall the mournful threnody of
that famous bard of our sister Carolina, J. Gordon Coogler
:
Alas for the South! Her books have grown fewer;
She never was much given to literature.
I greatly fear that we do not care very much for reading and for books
in North Carolina—not even for encyclopaedias. I heard not long ago
of an agent who asked a farmer in one of our rural districts if he didn't
want to buy an encyclopaedia, to which the conservative old farmer re-plied:
"Naw, I don't take much stock in them new-fangled machines.
In this neck of the woods we still stick to the old-fashioned horse and
buggy."
Many of you have seen upon University Heights in New York City
a noble structure of gleaming white marble, an enduring monument to
22 Fifteenth Annual Session
American genius, the Hall of Fame. Of the fifty-one tablets thus far
placed upon its ^alls, only one bears the name of a native of Xorth
Carolina, the soldier-statesman, Andrew Jackson; and through the
patronage of Willie and Allen Jones, and the guardianship of Joseph
Hewes, !N"orth Carolina can lay a secondary claim to but one other
name among those of foreign birth, the man whom Benjamin Franklin
dubbed the "Xorth Carolina midshipman," the greatest naval hero in
our annals, John Paul Jones. A soldier-statesman and a sailor—but
no man or woman of literary genius. In the Hall of Fame, the South
is represented by soldiers, sailors, statesmen, jurists, scientists—but by
only one distinctively literary genius—a man of English parentage
who happened to be born in Boston, Massachusetts—Edgar Allan Poe.
For many years I have searched deeply into the causes for the com-parative
dearth of literary and artistic productivity in the South and
for that genial Southern indifference to publication—the rock upon
which literary fame is founded. Tonight I shall dispense with all ex-planation,
apology, or excuse. The thrill of the new time tempts one
less to pathetic retrospection than to buoyant prophecy. Xevertheless,
I must voice my solemn conclusion that we cannot build up here a
great civilization—a civilization as great in art and letters, in culture
and taste, as it is great in material resources, statesmanlike ideals, and
an aroused social consciousness—unless we do live and work in the
noblest strivings of our nation and of humanity. Investigation has
convinced me that Xorth Carolina is lamentably backward, woefully
deficient, in her activity and representation in the great national or-ganizations
making for the development of art, literature, drama, and
all the multifarious influences for artistic culture in a democracy. I
have studied the records of these national organizations for the present
year in the effort to record, faithfully and justly, the part actually
played by Xorth Carolina in the life and work of national culture. I
find that Xorth Carolina is not represented at all in the Xational
Academy of Arts and Letters, or in the much larger body of the Xa-tional
Institute of Arts and Letters; nor has she any official represen-tation,
in the form of elected officers, president or vice-presidents, in
the American Historical Association, the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the American Pageant Association, the Drama League
of America, the American Folk-Lore Societv, the Poetrv Societv of
America, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Little if any attention need be paid to those of sectional bias who point
out that no scholar or man of letters, so long as he remains in the
South, ever wins large recognition in the national societies. Such a
narrow charge, even though resting upon indisputable facts, might arise
State Literary and Historical Association. 23
from a complete misinterpretation of those facts ; and in any case can-not
serve as a valid excuse for our supineness and indifference. In
science, pure and applied, North Carolina is nationally and interna-tionally
recognized. In this great branch of knowledge and research,
no Southern State, I dare say, is her equal. But in the arts—litera-ture,
painting, sculpture, drama—North Carolina is not living and
working today in the noblest strivings of the nation and of humanity.
As I have studied the cultural problems of our life here and sought
to make of this association a more constructive instrument for minister-ing
to our cultural wants, I have come to the conclusion that we have
three vital and immediate needs. The program of the meetings of the
Association for this year have been especially designed to meet these
needs.
No people can form a just estimate of their history, or feel legiti-mate
pride in it, until they know what that history really is. No com-prehensive
and complete history of North Carolina will ever be written
until the contribution of the individual units, whose integrated life
have largely constituted that history, are studied and bodied forth with
completeness and detail. The county is the unit of the State; the his-tory
of the county must furnish the nucleus for the history of the State.
North Carolina has exactly one hundred counties; it is a regrettable
fact that histories, of reasonable adequacy, have been written of only
about a dozen out of these hundred counties. I earnestly desire to
identify this Association with the duty and the task of stimulating, in-spiring
and directing the writing of the industrial, social, economic,
institutional histories of every single county in North Carolina. The
accomplishment of this great work will prepare the way for the writing
of the true and definitive history of North Carolina—the moving story
of the life of a great people.
In like manner, I desire to see our people acquire a decent and ade-quate
knowledge of the literary contributions of North Carolina for the
past one hundred and twenty-five years. Nietzsche defines man as a
something to be surpassed. And surely we can never rise above our-selves
to ourselves in literature until we really feel and know what
North Carolina has contributed in letters to the thought and conscious-ness
of the American people. As the county is the unit of the State,
so the State is the unit of the nation. In the noteworthy words of the
South's greatest living novelist, James Lane Allen:
There must in time and in the natural course of events come about a com-plete
marshaling of the American commonwealths, especially of the older
American commonwealths, attended each by its women and men of letters;
with the final result that the entire pageant of our literary creativeness as
24 Fifteenth Annual Session
a people will thus be exhibited and reviewed within those barriers and
divisions which from the beginning have constituted the peculiar genius of
our civilization.
When this has been done, when the States have severally made their pro-foundly
significant showing, when the evidence up to some century mark or
half-century mark is all presented, then for the first time we, as a reading
and thoughtful self-studying people, may be advanced to the position of
beginning to understand what as a whole our cis-Atlantic branch of English
literature really is.
It has been my great ambition to have this Association take account
in an orderly way of the manifold sides of our State literature—his-tory,
poetry, fiction, oratory and folk-lore. Out of the fundamental
principle of our government and institutions, the principle that the
country is a nation of States, there comes the recognition that our
literature, with all its humanity and its provinciality, is a national
literature made up of the contributions of the individual States. This
explanation of our American literature lies at the basis of our whole
democratic civilization.
Lastly, I have one recommendation to make to this Association and
to the people of North Carolina. It is to no Brahmin caste of scholars,
to no occupants of the ivory tower of literary seclusion, that I would
make this recommendation. I appeal to the communal consciousness
of a people—a people who, individually and collectively, need to be in-spired
with a deep sense of historic tradition and the passion of a great
faith in the destiny of our commonwealth. I desire to see spread be-fore
our people the entire pageant of our historic creativeness—as I
have seen great pageants of the history of Oxford University and of
the development of the martial power of the British Empire, now so
terribly taxed upon the battlefields of Europe. Pageantry has been
defined as poetry for the masses. We deeply need to see created in
North Carolina, through the common efforts of our leading citizens, a
fine art for the people. The elemental instinct for democratic art in
our midst needs to be educated, developed, refined, by means of popular
pageantry, into a mighty agency for civilization. I recommend that,
during the coming year, historic episodes of State and national interest
be presented by common effort in communities throughout the State.
May I suggest, among others, for Wilmington the revolt against the
Stamp Act; for Edenton, the Ladies' Tea Party; for New Bern, the
Settlement of the Palatines; for Winston-Salem, the founding of the
Academy; for Charlotte, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence;
for Salisbury, incidents from the careers of Daniel Boone and the
pioneers; for Greensboro, the Battle of Guilford Court House. Next
year, during Community-service Week, all of these episodes which
State Literary and Historical Association. 25
have been locally presented and perhaps others should then be linked
together in a great State Historical Pageant here in Raleigh, the capital
of the commonwealth—arranged in chronological order and designed
to give a poetic and romantic picture of the historic evolution of the
life of a people. Through this happy wedding of art and history may
be brought home to our consciousness a profoundly moving realiza-tion
of a glorious past and a quickening of our desires and hopes and
labors for an even more glorious future.
In conclusion, let me remind you that we celebrate here tonight the
fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the State Literary and His-torical
Association of North Carolina. In an address delivered at the
University of North Carolina exactly seventy-five years ago, the elo-quent
Hugh McQueen used these prophetic words: "No association of
practical service to the interests of Literature and Science now exists
in the State of North Carolina ; no public-spirited Society, which might
serve to hedge in by its active and beneficent care the sensitive and
fragrant flowers of genius which spring up within our borders ; which
might serve to incite matured intelligence to active operation for the
public good, which might stimulate youthful talent to essay the strength
of its own pinions; which might preserve from oblivion many interest-ing
facts and productions which are occasionally exhibited in the inter-course
and operations of life, and which might disseminate extensively
among the people, such literary documents and productions as would
renovate the aspect of letters in this department of the Union, and
convert our present dreary surface into a Literary Arcadia." Sixty
years after these striking words were uttered, there was founded here
this remarkable Association which has already fulfilled many of the
functions so sedulously set forth by the cultured McQueen. If it has
not, as yet, wholly succeeded in converting our present dreary surface
into a Literary Arcadia, certainly it has helped to arouse the cultural
consciousness of the State as it has never been aroused before in our
history. And let us hope that through the stimulation and encourage-ment
of the fine arts, the influence which emanates so effectively from
this already distinguished Association, we may look in the future for
the growth of a national and international spirit of culture which shall
enable us the more effectively to live and work in the noblest strivings
of the nation and of humanity.
26 Fifteenth Annual Session
Some Argentine Ideas
By Hon. R. S. Naon, Argentine Ambassador to the United States.
I know of no occasion where it would be more timely for me to speak
on my country than on this, so kindly tendered to me by your associa-tion,
and there is no subject I consider more appropriate for reaffirming
our characteristic as a people of ideals than that which I have chosen
for my address to you today: "Some Argentine Ideas."
It is not my aim to treat this subject from the standpoint of a doc-trinarian
in constitutional law, but rather to present to you as clearly
and comprehensively as time and circumstances will permit, the senti-ments,
the principles and the ideas which underlie the formation and
development of the political entity called "The Argentine Republic."
These sentiments, these principles and these ideas have continued to
be maintained and have inspired and assured our progress through all
the vicissitudes .of our organic life. They were the permanent aspira-tion
of the Argentine people until they became crystallized into the pre-cepts
of our wise constitution, into the system of legislation which rules
the regular life of the Republic, into the characteristics of our social
life and of our civic activity, and, finally, into the action of profound
liberalism which has always distinguished our international political
conduct.
The Argentine citizen lives his life under the domination of a senti-ment
of national pride and self-esteem which he cannot overcome and
which some might consider and have already considered as a manifesta-tion
of hypertrophy of personality. I beg of you to excuse this weak-ness,
if you note it in me, when I say that I entertain the hope that
when I conclude my brief exposition you will find justification for the
aspiration which every Argentine citizen entertains when he believes
as a national conviction that it is our manifest destiny to make of the
country, by the endeavor of her sons and the moral cooperation of man-kind,
a democracy of the highest social and political distinction.
The Argentine Constitution was the product of hardships extending
over a long period and it has, therefore, consecrated all the social ideals
which agitated the Argentine spirit from the moment the idea of our
political emancipation was born.
We cannot begin the development of the subject without first taking
up the preamble of that Constitution. It dominates and embraces,
giving utterance thereto with eloquent simplicity, all those hardships
which have not yet disappeared in spite of our achievements and which
State Literary and Historical Association". 27
maintain in the national spirit the eager desire to realize the aspirations
which have not yet been fulfilled, or to improve to the utmost what are
already a part of our national qualities.
This preamble represents the most authentic expression of our aspira-tions
to form an organic social entity, and makes of our Constitution
rather than a body of more or less strict rules of conduct, a body of
principles, an enunciation of political ideals. Its elasticity and, there-fore,
its capacity of evolution is so great as to enable it to satisfy all the
social tendencies which appear to have been imposed by mankind upon
the political organization of modern nations. All the exigencies of good
government, all the necessities of a wise and fruitful social administra-tion,
are to be found there directing the organic national life with the
irresistible force always encountered in principles for peoples who live
of, by and for them. All the impositions of the social moment and all
the demands of the spirit of the times find there also a possibility of
adaptation to those principles applied to the development of the activi-ties
of a people with sufficient moral and intellectual capacity to under-stand
them, to interpret them and to practice them.
We have already lived for seventy years under the guidance of our
Constitution and have formed in its observance our political habits, and
have inspired in the spirit of its provisions the achievement of our civic
ideals.
But the long and arduous road traveled has served solely to strengthen
it and cause it to continue to be as at the beginning, with the same in-tensity,
the highest and most perfect source of our patriotism, as well
as the instrument for the adequate working out of all problems affecting
our political life.
It might also be said that for an Argentine does not exist the moral
possibility of applying his activity as a citizen in the life of the nation,
without bearing in mind the idea of the Constitution and of its prin-ciples,
which impose themselves on his understanding and on his will
as the beginning and as the end of his action. By this I mean to say
that as a matter of fact the first sentiment of an Argentine, the highest
expression of his patriotism, is respect for the Constitution, a respect
which is almost fanatical and which forms in his mind the notion of a
wrong when its principles are violated.
This notion, when extended to all citizens, produces as a result a
national civic morality in the masses which prompts them to make any
personal sacrifice for the moral prestige of the country. This sentiment
is so predominant that even in the course of our international life has
it spontaneously appeared. It also produces a constant demand of the
people upon the government, and becomes a permanent control of public
28 Fifteenth Annual Session
opinion upon all public officials as well as upon the action and conduct
of their statesmen. Hence it has become a characteristic, even more, a
need, of the Argentine "Public Man" to sound the very depths of the-national
conscience in order to adjust to its dictates his directing con-duct
in public life.
It is for this reason that the Argentine "Public Man" is, wherever
he may be exercising his activities and in spite of the physical distance
which separates him from his country, an instrument of his people for
the realization of the organic aspirations which dominate them and is
an interpreter of their capacities and collective desires. His individual
personality does not exist. His personal aspirations are submerged in
his devotion to his country. His obsession is to reflect the national per-sonality
which he feels in himself as a citizen and as a public official.
Hence, also this other sentiment which dominates the "Public Man" as
a necessity of his life, namely, forgetfulness of self, which our great
"Public Men" have practiced to the utmost, seeking to make them-selves
worthy of harboring the only absorbing passion of which their
moral conscience is capable, the pride of recognizing in themselves a
genuine Argentine incarnation.
Both sentiments, that of collective Argentinism which characterizes
our masses and that which distinguishes and determines the life and
action of our "Public Man" have been embraced in the Constitution,
and especially in its preamble, in the recognition of the fact of a "na-tional
entity," an "Argentine people," and the necessity of the "Public
Man" to interpret that people, and to fulfill its precepts in creating for
that purpose the idea of political representation. The preamble of our
Constitution begins with the following words which are full of meaning
to one acquainted with the historical development of our Republic : ""We
the representatives of the people of the Argentine nation," that is to
say, "We who are vested with authority emanating from the only sover-eign
entity constituted by the 'People' of the Nation.' " Observe, gen-tlemen,
the preexisting notion of a "Nation" ; the notion and the senti-ment
of an "Argentine people"; the notion and the sentiment of a col-lective
entity with an organic life which manifests itself through that
other personal entity "We," that is to say, the "Public Man," an in-stitution
created in our democracy as a consequence and as an organ
of the representative system, and whose dignity and importance and
whose authority are based on that other entity, the sovereign entity
"People"—the "Public Man" who devotes himself without reservation
to the service and the glory of the "People."
The touchstone which we have had in order to bring to ourselves the
realization of the virtues of our Constitution has always been that
State Literaky and Historical Association. 29
drafted by the great framers of your Constitution of 1787, and when-ever
we wish to show clearly in the analysis of ours this idea of a pre-existing
"National Personality/' we place beside those opening words
of our preamble the words of the preamble of the American Constitu-tion
: "We, the people of the United States." Note the difference. In
both is present the collective idea : the existence of a people ; but in one
of them the "Public Man"—"We the representatives"—acts, discharging
the representation of the "People" who have previously at a constituent
convention designated them to organize the forms of the government
which was to rule thereafter the organic life of a "Nation" which had
been in existence ever since independence had been attained.
In the other, the people of the States are those who act, they them-selves
framing the Constitution inasmuch as its force is subject to their
approval, and the "People" not of an existing "Nation," but of sov-ereign
States which sought to establish a closer union. The former or-ganize
a "Nation" which had already existed through the organ of
their "Public Men," vested originally with the "national sentiment"
which inspires them, in their patriotic labor, with the recollection of
glories and hardships experienced during the period of forty years of
"national" sacrifices. The latter, the plenipotentiaries of autonomous
entities, seek a constitution not inspired by a "national" sentiment,
which did not exist, but to form a "union" later to be converted, not-withstanding
any local sentiment, into a "national" entity by the
strengthening of the "more perfect union" which the sanction of the
Constitution assured.
Both Constitutions conformed to the political necessities of each
people, and the words of the two preambles reflect the diversity of those
necessities : "We, the representatives of the people of the Argentine
nation," and "We, the people of the United States" ; and both at the
same time that they express two different political sentiments, also ex-press
two constitutional ideas which are likewise different.
The Argentine Constitution expresses in the words quoted the senti-ment
of the "Nationality" which has always maintained in all minds,
even during periods of internal dissension, the constitutional idea of
national unity. On the other hand the American Constitution expresses
in the words quoted, not the sentiment of a "nationality," but the senti-ment
of the locality, the sentiment of the local state which was at the
same time the constitutional idea on which its federalism was based.
And so two federal republics like that of the United States and that of
Argentina show their different origin, one evolving by the union of its
different entities toward "national consolidation," and the other evolv-
30 Fifteenth Annual Session
ing toward the organization of the local governments, in order to satisfy
the regional exigencies of the constitutional idea of "national unity."
The political sociologist will find another essential sentiment which
has always constituted one of the most fundamental and characteristic
principles of our national organization. I refer to a profound liberalism
which has always been reflected and has become a constitutional idea
and an Argentine principle of legislation. It has also prompted, aside
from the manifestations of internal organic life, the broad and generous
Argentine international policy closely observed even at times and under
circumstances which tended little to the preservation of a disinterested
and altruistic policy.
This sentiment is expressed in the same preamble when in setting
forth the purposes of the representatives of the people in enacting the
Constitution, it says : "To constitute the national union, guarantee jus-tice,
assure internal peace, provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and assure the benefits of liberty for ourselves, for
our posterity and for all men of the world who wish to live on Argentine
soil."
This was without doubt a clear expression of the social tendencies of
our revolution of independence which established from the first moment,
together with the abolition of slavery, the principle of political equality
of all men born in our territory, that of equality of civil rights for all
inhabitants, whether natives or foreigners. There is no constitution
which establishes as a fundamental principle that humanitarian ten-dency
for the entire system of legislation more broadly than the Argen-tine
Constitution.
The exercise of the activity of a man and his . liberty when the
achievement of his own welfare and aspirations is involved, is limited
only by the exercise of the activities and the liberty of others without
any distinction other than that emanating from the difference in their
personal capacities. This humanitarian sentiment has always prevailed
in our tendencies, in our customs and in our laws. At the same time that
it recognizes and practices that all men are created equal, it makes of
the consideration and respect arising from this equality a sentiment
of human fraternity, which in turn gives rise to that real social and
political democracy that makes all also equal in benefiting by oppor-tunities
in proportion to the capacities and virtues of each, and likewise
the country as a whole as the result of the free and fertile activities of
those individual capacities and of those virtues.
Such is the nature and character of the Argentine democracy, of that
Argentine democracy which is not only a principle of our internal politi-cal
organization, but also an inborn sentiment in our life as an inter-
State Literary and Historical Association. 31
national entity, a sentiment which instills in us a feeling of absolute
equality in our relations with all the nations of the world, and, conse-quently,
the consciousness of our duties in the work of civilization and
human progress.
It is for this that in the same manner that the principle of democracy
is the foundation of our political organization, the sentiment of inter-national
democracy is the foundation of our international policy. This
principle is so closely associated with our personal activity as citizens
and our international activities as a sovereign people, that even a casual
observer could easily note it even in the most inconsequential mani-festations
of our individual or collective life. The sentiment of political
equality and of social equality of an Argentine citizen in his relations
with others is like the sentiment of international equality of the Argen-tine
Republic, a sentiment which does not admit either of neglect or
indifference, not to speak of ignorance thereof. It is a sentiment under
permanent tension, an aggressive sentiment whose powerful dynamic
force characterizes and defines the entire movement and development
of our system of legislation and all the pride of our national character
which is as intense as our respect for the rights of other peoples and
the generosity and altruism characteristic of our foreign policy. This
sentiment is responsible, furthermore, for the spirit of optimism which
characterizes our people, instilling in them the firm conviction that
there is nothing which cannot be overcome by our efforts, that there is
no ideal which cannot be attained by our will.
This principle of our activity as citizens was expressed, long before
the enactment of our Constitution, by our greatest political sociologist,
the author of the "Socialistic Dogma of the Revolution of May," in
these words, which before their enunciation were an instinct of the civic
action of every Argentine, and afterwards a gospel, the feeling for and
observance of which constantly grew : "Men have no real value in
politics except as artisans for the production or realization of social
ideas. We do not conceive any progress for the country except under
the condition that the initiative in thought and social action be taken
by the best and most capable; and by the best and most capable we
understand those who represent the purest virtues and the highest in-telligence."
Together with these instincts of moral eminence which characterize
the permanent ideal of an Argentine as a citizen, there springs the pro-found
knowledge of our national greatness which has also been an in-born
patrimony of our thought and was expressed with the same candid
conviction when we came to independent life, or when we were succeed-ing
in the struggle for national organization, or at the present moment
32 Fifteenth Annual Session
when we feel a personality already vested with attributes of all kinds
to act in the front rank with the most advanced in the struggle of civili-zation.
In brief, I might affirm that the essential idea, the basic idea of our
political life, the principal Argentine constitutional idea, is "Democ-racy."
Democracy founded on an unshaken conviction of equality and
civic fraternity and of equality and international fraternity, and de-veloped
upon a representative system of government which at the same
time that it recognizes the superior existence of a "People" with aspira-tions
and a "National" consciousness, form also a basic element, the
Argentine "Public Man," representing all the moral ideas of that
"People," developing his directive action as an interpreter of the popu-lar
conscience and exigencies, the visionary of a glory which only the
patriot and the democrat can feel, the glory of achieving a name, no
matter how modest, in the history of the progress of his country.
This essential idea rests likewise on the basis of a preexisting col-lective
instinct, the instinct of nationality, but stimulated by the neces-sity
of individual realization which animates our constitutive elements
determining the conscience of the citizen, and by the necessity of par-tial
collective realization, which led to denning, more and more, after
our independence, the life of the local entity of our Argentine provinces.
The sentiment of local autonomy which underlay the internal struggle
for its recognition and which after becoming defined and strengthened
during 40 years of efforts and untold hardships, was recognized by the
framers of our fundamental charter, was as a matter of fact the origin
of this other constitutional idea—Argentine federalism—which was
affirmed as the principle on which our politico-administrative organi-zation
was to be based. This other Argentine constitutional idea was
adopted not as the result of a capricious and theoretical speculation,
but as the result of a popular sentiment which had overcome all pre-vious
efforts at organization that had failed to recognize it.
There can be no democracy where ignorance reigns, ignorance not
being compatible with the morality and the ideals which are essential
elements of democracy. Nor can there be a democracy, or at least it
cannot produce the organic political activity indispensable in the stimu-lation
of national life, when civic indifference prevails, diverting the
citizen from his interest in public affairs or keeping him from the polls
where the powers of the government are organized and the scope of its
action fixed as called for by the national interest. Hence, two more
constitutional ideas : compulsory primary education and the compulsory
vote. They have not been in fact literally prescribed by the fundamental
State Literary and Historical Association. 33
charter, but they have been imposed by it in principle, and fully regu-lated
and defined by special legislation.
Compulsory primary education seeks to equalize as far as possible
the mental capacity of our citizens in order to place them in such posi-tion
that the civic life of the country may not be turned over to the
blind passion of more or less self-interested bosses, but may develop
rather as a consequence of a direct consideration of the problems con-cerning
the life of the nation by the average mental capacity of the
masses.
By the adoption of the compulsory vote it has been sought to remove
the dangers of civic atony. Among us compulsory common education
has always prepared our citizens for the struggle of life, giving them
the means of obtaining a more or less broad understanding of the gen-eral
notions essential in modern society to efficient action. The com-pulsory
vote is impressing upon them the need of familiarizing them-selves
with the principles which personify national "Public Men," with
the exigencies of the policy and administration of the country. In this
way they are able to influence the action of those "Public Men," com-pelling
them, either to define their principles by discussion in the elec-toral
campaigns, or to apply them in official positions, and enabling
them to control the action and correct the errors of the government by
an intelligent and patriotic opposition.
These principles are supplemented : compulsory education, by the re-moval
of every religious influence from the public primary school, thus
leaving the work of forming and developing a religious sentiment to the
family and home ; the compulsory vote, by providing for a secret ballot
in order to avoid the corruption which might result from weakness
of character in the voter.
Our Constitution has recognized to such a degree the impossibility
of attaining our democracy except upon the basis of the mental prepara-tion
of the citizen, that it has provided in one of its provisions relating
to the political existence of the "Federal States," the requirement that
their local constitutions assure administration of justice, municipal gov-ernment
and primary instruction therein as a condition precedent to
guaranteeing them the enjoyment and the exercise of their institutions.
All these antecedents are the result of a sentiment of fruitful liberal-ism
which has always controlled the development of our organic life.
It has injected into every constituent or legislative act a principle of
activity and progress so intense in its nature that more than once it has
brought us to the point of considering respect for the administrative
or political traditions as contrary to the interests of the nation. It
might also be asserted that the only tradition which persists in the
3
34 Fifteenth Annual Session
Argentine mind as a force of permanent inspiration, and which cannot
be overcome, is the tradition of the glories and ideals of the revolution
and of the principles which gave them birth.
Perhaps an explanation of this peculiar circumstance may also be
found in the fact that that revolution put an end to the non-political
existence of the people and to a public administration organized upon
the principle of the absolute power of kings. The revolution created
a new state of affairs which did not find in that previous situation a
single base for expansion. Tradition, therefore, instead of constituting
for us the starting point for subsequent progress, signified rather a nega-tion
of the principles of the revolution which was based on liberty and
equality of men and of peoples, that is to say, upon the new principle
of the revolutionary democracy, which, as our great sociologist says
:
"Leveling all conditions, it tells us that there are no other differences
than those established by the law for the government of society; that
the magistrate, outside of the place he discharges his functions, is
merged with other citizens; that the priest, the soldier, the lawyer, the
merchant, the artisan, the rich and the poor are all alike; that the
lowest of the masses is a man equal in rights to others and carries im-pressed
on his forehead the dignity of his origin; that only probity,
work, talent and genius produce superiority; that one engaged in the
smallest industry, if he have capacity and virtues, is no less than the
priest, the lawyer or any other who devotes his faculties to some other
occupation; and, in brief, that in a democratic society the only ones
worthy, wise and virtuous and entitled to consideration are those who
contribute with their natural efforts to the welfare and prosperity of
the country."
We had been living for three centuries under the dead weight of an
almost religious respect for tradition and of the infallible authority
which the old political doctrines imposed; while the moment called for
the application of the forces which have gone to make up the strength
of democracy as a political principle. They called for a continuous
action of reform, for the exercise of all the mental and physical activi-ties
of man, because, as a matter of fact, movement in every aspect of
social life is the essence and the reason of democracy. Hence, there-fore,
this sentiment of profound liberalism which has always character-ized
our organic life, a sentiment which spontaneously exerts its influ-ence
throughout our social activity. It finds its reflection not only in
our internal legislation wherein are established all the broadest doc-trines
which human thought has evolved in the matter of individual
rights, but also in its strengthening of the principles of liberty and
equality.
State Literary and Historical Association. 35
A consequence of this essential principle is found in the fact that
Argentine life develops and has always developed looking about and to
the future, rather than back to the past, and in the midst of the strug-gle
which leads to triumph, rather than to the consideration of what
has already been attained.
The individual rights corresponding to the Argentine liberalism con-stitute
in reality the patrimony of every citizen, and a democratic or-ganization
like ours could not but adopt them in the broadest form
and assure their exercise with the integrity necessary to produce the
favorable social effects which spring from free and salutary individual
action. It is for this reason that the principle which establishes the
political equality of all citizens and the civil equality of all inhabitants,
as well as the guarantees thereof, has found scrupulous expression in
our fundamental laws and regulations.
This idea has been incorporated as a principle in the Argentine Con-stitution.
It prescribes that all inhabitants of the nation enjoy the
following rights subject to the laws which govern their exercise, namely
:
To work and engage in any lawful occupation; to navigate and engage
in commerce ; to petition the authorities ; to enter, sojourn in, pass
through and leave the territory ; to publish their ideas through the press
without previous censorship; to use and enjoy their property; to asso-ciate
for useful ends ; freely to profess their religion ; to teach and to
learn ; and as a guarantee of the exercise of these rights the same Con-stitution
has proscribed all prerogatives based on blood or birth as well
as the existence of special privileges or titles of nobility, and has pro-claimed
equality as the basis of taxation and public charges ; it has pro-claimed
the inviolability of property; it has guaranteed to the author
and inventor the exclusive ownership of his work, invention or discovery
for a reasonable time commensurate with the general interests; it has
proscribed forever from the Argentine penal system the confiscation of
property; it has established that no armed body can make requisitions
nor demand aid of any kind; it has established that no inhabitant of
the nation can be punished without previous trial in pursuance with a
law antedating the act for which he is tried, nor be tried by special com-missions,
nor be removed from the jurisdiction of the judges designated
to try him by a law antedating the act, nor be compelled to testify
against himself, nor be arrested except on the written order of a com-petent
authority. It has proclaimed the inviolability of the defense in
court of persons and rights, as well as the inviolability of domicile and
of correspondence and private papers; it has abolished forever the
penalty of death for political causes, and as to its penal institutions it
has recorded as a constitutional principle the idea that the jails of the
36 Fifteenth Annual Session
nation must be sanitary and clean and be used for the custody of and
not for punishing the unfortunate inmates thereof, holding the judge
who authorizes them responsible for any measures which, under the pre-text
of caution, tend to mortify them beyond the requirements of such
custody. And, finally, it has assured the absolute moral independence
of all its inhabitants, guaranteeing the principle that the private acts
of men which in no wise offend order or public morals, nor prejudice
third persons, are reserved solely to God and exempt from the authority
of magistrates.
Beside the principle of equality of rights and as a correlative thereof,
it has always been an Argentine idea that every citizen bears the re-sponsibility
of the national defense, and, therefore, that it is his duty
to take up arms in its behalf. This constitutional idea has been guar-anteed
by the enactment of laws which establish the principle of com-pulsory
military service for the organization of the national army and
navy, constituting, in conjunction with the principles of compulsory
primary education and compulsory universal suffrage, the three corner-stones
upon which the entire structure of Argentine democracy rests,
that is to say, the mental and moral vigor, together with the civic ca-pacity
and the defensive strength which constitute combined the guar-anty
of the organization, the practice and the maintenance of demo-cratic
institutions.
I have already said that another of the great Argentine ideas, consti-tutional
in fact because it has its existence in the ground-work of our
national system as well as in the mind itself of the Argentine people, is
that which springs from the humanitarianism peculiar thereto. It
strengthens and develops to the utmost the sentiment of our national
personality, and recognizes and respects as well the principle of the sov-ereign
equality of other nations, practicing, not for the sake of con-venience
which never determined the action of privileged organisms,
but on account of the moral necessity which dominates our life, the
principle of international democracy which has at every moment of our
history inspired our foreign policy.
This principle has not been only recognized by its enunciation in the
preamble of the Constitution, when it assures the benefits of liberty to
all men of the world who desire to inhabit Argentine soil, as well as to
ourselves as to our posterity. It has also inspired the Argentine policy
respecting the foreigner, whether manifested either in the enactment
of positive law, in international relations, or in the negotiation of
treaties and conventions. The Constitution and the laws have declared
the principle that foreigners enjoy in the territory of the nation all the
civil rights of a citizen; it has likewise recognized the principle that
State Literary and Historical Association. 37
the navigation of the inland waters of the nation is open to all flags;
it has prescribed the obligation of the federal government to cement its
relations of peace and commerce with foreign powers by treaties con-forming
to the principles of onr public law; and, finally, it has thrown
open the doors of all our moral and material activities to the foreigner
without further restrictions than those called for for the exigencies of
our social preservation, in establishing as an obligation of the federal
government the promotion of European immigration and in forbidding
it to adopt any measure tending to restrict, limit or encumber with any
tax whatsoever the entrance into Argentine territory of foreigners who
come with the purpose of tilling the soil, improving industries or in-troducing
and teaching the arts and sciences.
It is unnecessary to tell you that an evidence of the faithful applica-tion
of these principles is shown by the hundreds of thousands of men
who annually come from all civilized nations to our shores to establish
their homes among us and to take advantage of the opportunities of-fered
by our natural wealth and our laws to men of good will.
This liberalism, which has always been an essential factor in the
development of our organic life and has always determined our legis-lation
and our policy, has not found expression solely in the precepts of
our Constitution or in the provisions of our laws. It also characterizes
each period of our diplomatic history in so eloquent and so efficient a
form that it constitutes one of the most certain elements of judgment
for the study of the tendencies and characteristics of the Argentine
people. This history shows that the Argentine people is an organically
pacifist people, a people which as an element of civilization and of
progress has the powerful intuition that only with the prevalence of
peace and good will among men, and peace and good will among nations,
is it possible for their ideals and aims to be maintained.
Resort to arms has never attracted their predilections, and if they
have more than once been compelled to accept it as an inexorable and
inevitable necessity, they have not done so either to seek a benefit or to
procure an advantage, because they have never conceived any benefit
or advantage which could spring from the misfortune or from the pros-tration
which war entails. It is only the unavoidable exigencies of the
national dignity or the integrity of our institutions which could compel
it to accept the calamities and consequences of a war. But war itself
has served to reaffirm how intense and deep is our liberalism.
Another manifestation of our liberalism may be found in the propa-ganda
which our country has been conducting for international arbitra-tion
as a means of settling disputes between nations, adopting a formula
which is at the present time the highest perfection of that system. One
38 Fifteenth Annual Session
of the most illustrious statesmen of my country thus had occasion in
1880, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, to affirm that arbitration had al-ways
been a noble and constant aim of our people, and that "the Argen-tine
government can show its adherence for a long time to that prin-ciple
which wisely considers both the interests of justice and the altru-istic
requirements of humanity." In fact, since 1856, when the Argen-tine
Republic concluded with Chile her first arbitration treaty for the
settlement of boundary questions pending at that time and such others
as might thereafter arise, our efforts to bind ourselves with all other
countries of the world through compulsory arbitration, have not ceased
for a single day.
I cherish the belief—perhaps in my pride as an Argentine—that it
is the recognition of the moral conscience of my country, rather than
her enormous economic vitality that now and always has won for her
the esteem and respect of the civilized world.
Gentlemen, I must now conclude, but not without taking this oppor-tunity
to thank you for the honor you have bestowed upon me in in-viting
me to address you, and to express the admiration we feel for the
illustrious founders of the American Union. From them our heroes
got the most profound political inspiration. They became for us an
example and a model of republican virtues and democratic ideals, and
the Constitution they framed guided in great measure the glorious ex-pansion
of our forces in this strenuous march towards the highest pos-sible
culminations, a fatiguing but steady march but to which we are
forced by the record of our past, the vigorous achievements of our
present, and the energy of our aspirations for the future.
State Literary and Historical Association. 39
CONFERENCE ON COUNTY HISTORY
Opening Remarks
By President Archibald Henderson.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I welcome you here today most heartily. I
feel that we are assembled to consider what I regard as the most vital
and immediate problem in historical investigation now confronting our
people. No people can form a just estimate of their own history, or
feel legitimate pride in it, until they know what that history is. And
I venture the assertion that no comprehensive or complete history of
North Carolina up to any given point in time will ever be written until
the contributions of the individual units, whose integrated life have
constituted that history, are studied and bodied forth with completeness
and detail. The county is the unit of the State; the history of the
county must furnish the nucleus for the history of the State.
There are three phases in the study of the county history which
should, I think, be considered today.
First and foremost, we must endeavor to arouse historic interest in
every county of the State, and further the efforts of local investigators
and local historical organizations to secure, while there is yet time, or at
least to locate and catalogue, such material of historic interest as may
be in private hands—diaries, letters, papers, documents, manuscripts,
etc. I would point to my own native county of Rowan which has re-organized
the Rowan County Historical Society; its quarters will
be in the great new community center, the historic courthouse, now
handsomely remodeled. An elaborate history of the county is now pre-paring;
and it is probable that a new and greatly enlarged edition of
Rumple's "Rowan" will also be published in the near future.
The second problem is the task of the examination and calendaring
of the public records in every county in the State. For this purpose
legislative appropriations, running over a series of years, will be re-quired
to cover the cost of a trained historical expert. Such an his-torical
expert would examine every record book and every bundle of
manuscripts in every county courthouse, make a card catalogue of all
materials which deserve to be catalogued, and eventually collate all
such card catalogues in publishing a full calendar of all the county
records in the State. A duty no less important than that of cataloguing
materials would be the preparation of a report on the way in which the
records are kept, and a recommendation of some uniform method for
40 Fifteenth Annual Session
indexing the records and keeping them on file in such a way as to be easy
of access to historical students.
The third problem is the very pressing and vital problem : What type
of county history do we really want here in North Carolina ? The most
scientific and exhaustive history of any county I have seen, of the
modern type, is the "History of Lake County, Illinois/' by Prof. John
J. Halsey, of Lake Forest University, whose people, by the way, lived
in Chowan for more than a century until his grandfather moved away
from Edenton in 1806. I have brought this county history, a quarto
volume, here with me; its length, 872 pages, will show you how much
may be said—and how well it may be said—about a county. My own feel-ing
is that our new county histories should be brief, concise, yet com-prehensive
in scope. On February 10, 1857, Governor Swain sent out
a circular letter in which he said : "To attain uniformity in the series
of county histories—perhaps a better plan cannot be suggested than to
make 'Wheeler's Sketches of North Carolina' available to the purpose."
Today the effort should be made to get away from the old type of genea-logical,
political and martial county history, with its glorification of
family, its accentuation of the military record, and its dreary catalogue of
officials with corresponding dates of service. What is needed today, I
would venture to suggest, is a new type of county history, which tells
in brief, concise and readable form the story of the life of the people—
industrial, racial, social, economic, institutional; one which ruthlessly
omits umbrageous family trees, and reduces the political and martial
phases of county history to the true scale of proportion in the picture.
I would suggest that a board of editors, with authority to act, should be
appointed by this body, whose function it shall be to stimulate the
writing of histories in every county in the State, and to furnish a model
guide for a county history.
State Literary and Historical Association. 41
A New Type of County History
By William K. Boyd, Ph.D., Peofessor of History in Trinity College,
County history has a twofold interest. One is purely local, the con-cern
of a family in its genealogy, of a raconteur in notable events of
the neighborhood, and of citizens in the political, social, and intellectual
antecedents of their environment. The other interest of the subject is
derived from its relation to state or region, the way in which it may
illustrate and visualize the evolution of that unit of which the county
is only a digit. The first of these interests has dominated the writing
of county history from the days of Wheeler to the present,1 yet I feel
safe in saying that even from the purely local point of view, in no in-stance
has the history of any county been exhaustively treated. The
second phase of county history, its integration in the life of a section
or of a state, is more difficult to comprehend and to portray. It has
not been done, with the exception of a few incomplete contributions.
Believing that a combination of the two interests, the local and the
state or regional, is possible, I take the liberty of saying a few words
concerning the content of a county history written with such a purpose,
some of the sources which are available, and some ways in which such
kind of investigation may be encouraged.
I.
Mr. Nash has well said that Orange County in its genesis was "with-out
form and void." 2 Consequently the first task of a county historian
is to describe the resources of the county, its geological formation, soils,
fauna and flora, minerals, and drainage, pointing out the influence of
these earthy factors on the life of the inhabitants. A most helpful
guide to the information for such a chapter is Laney and Wood's Bibli-ography
of North Carolina Geology, Mineralogy and Geography.3
This opening chapter should be followed by a discussion of the origin
of the county, with full particulars of the causes and process by which
it was chartered. At the very inception of the county its integration
with general political history begins; recollect, for instance, the con-troversy
in colonial days between the Governor and the Assembly con-cerning
the right of incorporation, the significance of an expanding
frontier, and the sectional controversy of the east and the west. These
have been powerful factors in the organization of our counties; unfor-iWheeler:
Historical Sketches of North Carolina (Philadelphia, 1851).
2Nash: History of Orange County, Part I (N. C. Booklet, X, No. 2).
3Bulletin of the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey (Raleigh, 1909).
42 Fifteenth Anistuae Session
tunately the information about their relation to the incorporation of
specific counties is hidden away in the colonial records, the legislative
journals, and the manuscript archives of the State.
Logically there should follow an account of the early inhabitants,
the Indians and the whites. The early settlements should be analyzed,
showing the racial origins and the influence of racial traits upon later
history. Nor should the matter of genealogy be neglected, for it is of
far greater than local importance. I dare say that every person in
North Carolina who is in any way identified with local history has re-ceived
many letters of inquiry from people in other states who are
anxious to trace their North Carolina ancestry. Most of these in-quiries
are in vain, because the gentle art of genealogy is almost un-known
among us. Therefore the county historian should give an ex-tended
list of the early settlers, let us say down to the year 1815, when
the migration to the southwest and the northwest was well under way.
The significance of such a genealogical survey is realized when we
recall that in the early days of Georgia and Alabama the first political
cleavage was not so much over political principles as the rivalry of the
elements of their population, notably between the North Carolinians and
the Virginians in Georgia. The local historians of the southwestern
states tell us in just what regions the Carolinians and the Virginians
settled; but who can say which sections of North Carolina furnished
most of the immigrants? True, Iredell County gave to the far west
a Kit Carson, to Tennessee Hugh L. White, while from Mecklenburg
and Wake went James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson to Tennessee.
Alabama is indebted to Sampson for William R. King, to Mecklenburg
for Israel Pickens, to Robeson for John Murphy, to Stokes for Gabriel
Moore. Georgia acquired John Clarke from Wake, Jared Irwin from
Mecklenburg, and William Robinson from Halifax. But which coun-ties,
rather which section of the State, furnished most of the supporters
of Governor Clarke in his memorable campaigns against Troup and
the Virginians living in Georgia? Moreover, why did so many North
Carolinians leave the State of their nativity? What was the effect of
this migration on progress and leadership at home? Somewhere and
somehow our county records should tell ; yet the only investigation of
this phase of the history of a single county, so far as I know, has been
made by a resident of Alabama.4
There are other possibilities in the analysis of population that have
not been realized. For instance, one of the leading pacifists of the
country has recently declared that in the Civil War the best physical
and mental types of manhood in the South were lost, that the hard task
of industrial and intellectual recuperation was left to a generation far
4Mamiscript by Hon. Thomas M. Owen, Montgomery, Ala.
State Literary and Historical Association. 43
inferior in quality to that which was living in 1860. The facts on
which he bases this conclusion are derived from a study of two counties
in Virginia and one in Georgia. 5 I wonder if a conscientious county
historian in North Carolina, unbiased by pacifist ideals, would come
to a similar conclusion?
From the population it is natural to turn to some of the forces that
shape the life of a community. The one most slightly treated in the
average county history is religion. Perhaps the historian is unduly
impressed with denominational jealousies and theological controversies,
and deems reticence on the matter of church history the only way to
be optimistic. However, he should not fail to realize that religion in
its origin is closely related to the social instinct, the desire of mankind
for companionship. It is therefore not accidental that in the settle-ment
of this country the church existed long before the day of the
schoolhouse, the lodge, the Farmers Union, or the modern club. More-over,
the rules of the churches reflect the attitude of the community
on such matters as marriage between members of different denomina-tions,
traffic in slaves, Masonry, dress, and amusements. Therefore
the church records of the county should be diligently sought and ex-amined.
They will reveal standards of conduct and thought that have
passed away, and will suggest many traits of mind and character of the
early inhabitants. Moreover, some of the significant movements in the
history of religion in the South began in North Carolina, such as the
first educational movement, the first periodical, and the first camp meet-ing
among the Methodists. James O'Kelly, the earliest champion of
individualism in religion in the South, was born and died in Chatham
County. The rise of the Missionary Baptists is of more than state or
county significance, while the leaven of Calvinism did much to estab-lish
academies and colleges. Who can tell to what extent county history
might add to our knowledge of these forces, important in the history
of Christianity in the South as well as the State?
Economic conditions have also been a powerful factor in shaping the
life of a people. North Carolina has always been notable for the va-riety
of its industrial activities, the absence of any solidarity of eco-nomic
interests, and a resulting lack of unity in political sentiment.
Yet economic development has received slight account in our county
histories; in none of them have all the available sources been used. I
therefore take the liberty of making the following suggestions for the
treatment of the economic development of a county.
There were four stages in the economic evolution of a pioneer com-munity,
represented by four types of inhabitants : the hunter or trapper,
the hog ranger, the farmer, and the miller and manufacturer. If pos-
5Jordan: War's Aftermath.
44 Fifteenth Annual Session
sible the course of these stages of development in the history of the
county should be traced. Here written records are apt to fail but land-marks
often tell the story. The old trails may show the course of the
retiring trapper, the names hog run, horse pocosin, etc., the grazing
ground of the herdsman, while land grants and deeds indicate the advent
of the farmer. Visualization of these processes in the settlement of our
country is always helpful to those interested in state or national history
;
it also adds color and value to the narrative for those interested in
purely local affairs.
Much more detailed information may be had and is desirable con-cerning
the last stages of industrial development, the agricultural and
manufacturing. From the angle of state and national, as well as
purely local affairs, studies of the following topics would be of in-estimable
value: the average size of farms in various epochs of the
county's history, the number of slaves and the nature of white tenancy
prior to 1860, the products and the method of marketing them, and the
agricultural changes since 1865. Likewise the rise of manufactures
should be traced from the grist and lumber mills to the modern factory.
The whole subject of economic history, county by county, is full of
possibilities, for the economists and the sociologists are more and more
deserting their theories for the study of industrial transformations in
small communities or units. Yet in none of our county histories can
there be found an analysis of the ante-bellum plantation system or docu-ments
illustrating plantation life. In fact, the only documents illus-trative
of agricultural conditions in the South prior to 1860 and the
only study of the agricultural transformation since 1865 have been pub-lished
by students of general or of state history residing beyond the
confines of North Carolina. 6
The topics thus outlined do not by any means cover the field of county
history but they do illustrate the blending of state or regional and
local interests. However, they must be treated cross-sectionally, for
the history of a county must follow the grand divisions of national his-tory,
the Colonial, the Eevolutionary, the Federal, the Civil War, the
Reconstruction and the contemporary periods. To make more concrete
and definite my conception of county investigation, I take the liberty
of outlining in detail one cross-section, the period of Reconstruction.
The history of the county from 1865 to 1876 should discuss the follow-ing
subjects
:
I. Economic Conditions.
A. Loss of men and property during the war, based on censuses of
1860, 1870, 1880 and local sources; shifting of population.
6Phillips: Plantation and Frontier, Vols. I and II of Documentary History of American Indus-trial
Society. Brooks: The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, 1865-1912 (University of Wisconsin).
State Literary and Historical Association. 45
B. Break up of the plantation system, as shown by the census and
local records, the rise of white and colored tenancy, the resulting
change in products, debts and mortgages, and if possible the influ-ence
of the Freedmen's Bureau and the legislation of 1866 on labor.
C. The rise of manufactures to 1880; pointing out the nature of
manufactures in 1860, 1870, 1880, the new industries, influence
of foreign capital if any; the rise of new towns; the number, sex
and wages of the employees.
D. Transportation: The railways in 1860, 1870, 1880; if any in-crease,
the method by which attained.
E. White and negro population, 1860, 1870, 1880.
II. The Churches During Reconstruction.
A. The number, denomination, and membership in 1860.
B. Membership during the war and during Reconstruction; changes
in customs.
C. Separation of the races; rise of the negro church.
III. Educational Development.
A. Public and private schools in 1860.
B. Appropriation for schools during the war ; fate of the iacademies
;
collapse of the ante-bellum school system.
C. The revival of the public school.
D. Academies since the war.
E. Rise of the negro school, public and private.
IV. County Government.
A. The Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions from the opening of the
war until its abolition in 1868.
B. Special governing boards, if any.
C. Rise of the modern form of county government under the Con-stitution
of 1868.
D. The advent of city charters.
E. State courts and military courts during Reconstruction.
V. Secret Organizations.
A. Background ; the Ereedmen's Bureau ; military government ; eco-nomic
and social changes.
B. The Red Strings and the war societies.
C. The Union League.
D. The Ku Klux.
E. Operations of the societies; methods, political activities; riots
or outrages ; investigations ; decadence.
46 Fifteenth Annual Session
VI. Political Development.
A. Party alignment in 1860 and 1861.
B. Political activity during the war; legislative, gubernatorial and
Confederate elections.
C. The Convention of 1865, the gubernatorial and legislative elec-tions
of 1865.
D. Parties and elections of 1867.
E. The county in the Convention of 1868.
P. Politics, 1868-1876.
VII. Sketches of Leadeks in Politics and Industry.
This outline for the Reconstruction period of county history is more
than experimental and tentative. It has been used with good results
at the University of Mississippi and at Trinity College in this State. 7
The possibilities of county history in other periods might be sketched,
as, for instance, in that profound industrial and social transformation
since 1876. However, as this chapter borders on the domain of that
newest and most fascinating of the social sciences, Rural Economics and
Sociology, I refrain, and pass on to the next division of my remarks,
the question of bibliography for county history.
II.
The principal sources may be classified as manuscript and printed.
Each group deserves some consideration.
A. Manuscript.
I. The county archives, consisting of the proceedings of the Court
of Pleas and Quarter Sessions and its successor, the board of county
commissioners ; the deeds in the register's office ; the wills filed by the
clerk ; the tax lists on the sheriff's books, etc. These have been compared
by Mr. ISTash to the dry bones in the incomparable vision of Ezekiel,
which the "historian's enlightened but restrained imagination" may
clothe "with sinews and flesh and life." They are of inestimable value
to the genealogist and the biographer ; they also indicate the section of a
county first settled, the intellectual and economic character of the settlers,
the course of roads, the construction of bridges and mills, litigation, and
the growth of wealth, the truth or falsity of traditions, and numerous
facts unexpected and undreamed of by the searcher after truth. How
little have they been used ! A gentleman actively engaged in county in-vestigation
ventures the assertion that "not in an old county of the State
has every record been perused from its establishment to 1850." One
of the paramount needs is a manual of methodology for county archives
7See Publications of the Mississippi State Historical Society, Vols. XI, XII; Papers of the Trinity
College Historical Society, Series X.
State Literacy and Historical Association. 47
which will give a summary of the kind of material that one may ex-pect
to find in each class of archives, the best manner of taking notes
and making cross-references, and the relation of the archives of the
county to those of the county or counties from which it was formed,
and other pertinent matters.
II. The legislative, executive and judicial archives, the manuscript
records in Kaleigh in the' offices of the Governor, the executive officers
and the Supreme Court,—a vast array of petitions, rejected bills, official
communications, letters, account books, military rosters and court
records, which have never been classified or indexed. Some day, let us
hope, the State will realize their value and have them arranged and
calendared. Until then every investigator, whether of county or general
state history, must fish in troubled waters.
III. Records of churches, institutions, and societies. These are of
course of miscellaneous character and vary from county to county.
A search must be made for them. Let me illustrate the danger of over-looking
them. Several years ago the history of a county was written in
which there were a few remarks about its anti-slavery sentiment. Un-known
to the writer there existed in that county the minutes of one
of the most remarkable anti-slavery organizations in the entire South,
containing enough material to make a chapter in themselves. But they
were unknown to the author, and that chapter in the county's history
remained to be written.
IV. Private correspondence; diaries, account books, plantation
records, etc. How often are these destroyed. A few years ago the per-sonal
effects of one of the contractors who helped to build an important
railway in IsTorth Carolina were sold by his executors. A fine chest
of drawers was bought; the purchaser, finding it full of papers and let-ters,
emptied the contents on the ground and burned them. Who can
tell the loss thus sustained to the history of Rowan County?
B. Printed Sources.
I. Laws of North Carolina, sessional. These contain a vast amount
of information that has never been thoroughly explored. For example,
in the private acts can be found the licenses to build roads and bridges,
the charters of academies, manufacturing companies and Masonic
lodges, provisions for local government, taxation, patrols and care of
the poor, the foundation of libraries, the holding of courts, and numer-ous
other matters which interpret life in the past. A complete file
of the laws is rare, hardly to be found except in our larger libraries.
Moreover there is no general index to them. Some patriotic citizen
with an antiquarian taste could place all local historians under a lasting
48 Fifteenth Annual Session
debt of gratitude by publishing a calendar of the material for county
history in the public and private laws.
II. The Public Documents of North Carolina are also a Yast store-house
of information, the publication of which was begun in 1836.
They contain the reports of the State Treasurer and Comptroller, mes-sages
of the Governors, reports of railway and plank road companies,
and of committees. In the Comptroller's reports can be found the
amount of taxes paid by each county, in 1854 the value of lands county
by county, in 1856 and after the amount of local taxes, and in 1863 the
first valuation of slave property. The appropriations for public schools
and the condition of the banks are also given in the Comptroller's Re-ports.
A complete check list of the contents of the public documents
relating to counties is, I think, impossible ; but there is a valuable help
to their use in Bowker's "State Publications."
III. The Journals of the Legislature are also important, for in them
can be traced the attitude of the county's representatives on such im-portant
measures as railroad bills, public appropriations, resolutions
concerning State's rights and slavery, personal liberty and constitutional
questions during the war, as well as purely local matters. The same
may be said for the journals of constitutional conventions.
IV. Records of church bodies, churches, lodges, commercial organi-zations
and societies of various kinds.
V. Publications of the United States Government, notably the
Census, the "War of the Rebellion Records, the Ku Klux Report, the
Report of the Reconstruction Committee, and the reports of the en-gineers,
which contain a vast amount of information relating to eco-nomic,
social, military and political history.
VI. Newspapers. A file of a county newspaper, when available,
bears to the historian the same relation that a rich vein does to the
miner of gold. Unfortunately files are rare, there being few in the
State Library prior to 1880. I wish that some librarian with an anti-quarian
interest would make a check list of the North Carolina news-papers
in the libraries of the State, of educational institutions, and of in-dividuals,
and also those in the great collections of the North and West.
Let me add that some of the national papers in the old days contain
valuable information regarding local affairs in North Carolina, notably
Niles' Register.
III.
Finally, how can the cause of county history be aided? Let us re-member,
first of all, that the historical, like the literary impulse, cannot
be grown by hothouse methods ; it obeys no law, and like the wind, it
blows where it listeth. I will go further and assert that history is a
State Literary and Historical Association. 49
branch of literature, one of the arts as much as poetry and fiction. It
has, however, this distinction, that while it is an art in its purpose, its
method is scientific. Herein lies the opportunity of an organization
like the State Literary and Historical Society to be of service; it may
furnish an outline and guide for gathering and organizing material;
in other words, we can formulate a method for county history work,
which, we may hope, will attract now and then the genius of the
literary artist. I therefore suggest that this Society appoint a com-mittee
to prepare a guide for the study and writing of county history
in North Carolina. Such a work, when made accessible to classes in
American history, literary clubs, libraries and individuals, may, in the
providence of the muses, bring results in more numerous and more
comprehensive county histories. In one other way can this organiza-tion
be of service. It can give, each year, right of way in its program
to studies in county history. Such a policy will assure recognition for
investigators of county history; it will also give a permanent and solid
value to the society's publications.
50 Fifteenth Annual Session
The Vital Study of a County
By E. C. Branson, Peofessoe of Rueal Economics and Sociology in the
Uniyeesity of Noeth Carolina.
In prefatory way, I desire to congratulate the State Literary and
Historical Society upon the rare vision and wisdom of its plan to as-semble,
interpret, and preserve in worthful, literary form the history
of North Carolina, county by county.
The consciousness of well characterized group-personality is strong
in North Carolinians ; so strong that it is strange and astonishing to
people in New England, Minnesota, Illinois and other States where our
annual Carolina Day and Community-service Week have so greatly
challenged attention and comment. It is less strange in California,
Kansas, Kentucky or Virginia, where a similar pride in the home State
has always been an informing force in individual and civic development.
Love of State is not a childish, trivial something; it is an indispensable
factor in the building of character.
Denmark is a conspicuous modern instance of local patriotism as a
national asset. The thing that most impresses a visitor in the Danish
Folkschulen is not the agriculture or the home economics, but the local
folk-lore, the home-bred myth, song, and story, the chronicles of Danish
heroism, patriotism and achievement that fill the teaching of literature
and history to overflowing.
Denmark is recited and sung in every class every day. Her agricul-ture
is wonderful, but her blazing national consciousness goes further
toward explaining her rise into greatness in the last half century. Dan-ish
patriotism is not narrowly parochial and provincial. It is intense,
but it is broadly intelligent.
The Carolina Day exercises in our schools impress visitors from other
States in quite the same way. "I am sorry to say there is nothing like
this in my home State," said a New Englander in North Carolina on
the fourth of last December.
Be it said to the honor of North Carolina, there never was a time
when a North Carolinian could be a gentleman and be ignorant of the
history of his mother State. Familiar, loving acquaintance with the
home county and the home State is a necessary foundation for effective
citizenship.
THE REAEWAED LOOK.
The vital study of a county is the study of what is vital in a county.
It is a study of the big, main things, the causal, significant, conse-
State Literary and Historical Association. 51
quential things in community life. Things that are trivial and super-ficial,
incidental and inconsequential have small place in such a study.
If so be they indicate the characteristic mood, humor or temper of a
people, they have a very large place in an interpretative study; but not
otherwise.
First of all, it ought to begin with the rearward look. What the
county was day before yesterday is related to what it will be day after
tomorrow. What lasts on and on in any community grows straight out
of the nature of human nature in that community.
An understanding of the economic, social, and civic life of a county
or a country calls for acquaintance with the historical background;
with origins, resources, advantages, obstacles, occupations and indus-tries,
racial strains, noteworthy events and achievements, localities and
memorials, with community-building leaders, with notable, noble per-sonages
and their contributions to the industrial or spiritual wealth
of the county. The field under survey ought not to be cluttered up with
trifles light as air, however interesting or appealing to family pride.
A county history now on my desk well illustrates what a county his-tory
ought not to be. It is big and bulky, exhaustive and exhausting.
It is descriptive merely. It is crowded with trivialties that signify
nothing; with names and places, items and details that were not worth
recording. They confuse one's sense of values. They lead into no con-clusions
large or small. It is occasionally interesting and charming.
It is full of things curious, fantastic, and bizarre; but hardly worth
one's while for instruction or inspiration. It is, I may say, one of the
many histories of the New England Berkshires.
THE round-about and the forward look.
But the vital study of a county also calls for the round-about and
the forward look. It is a homespun study of community forces, agen-cies
and influences, tendencies, drifts and movements that have made
the history we study today and that fatefully are making the history
our children will be studying tomorrow.
It is examining the economic and social forces that operate in the
small, familiar area of the home county. They are forces that have
something like the steady, fateful pull and power of gravitation or any
other natural law. They are creating opportunities or obstacles. They
are making or marring community life. They need to be definitely
known and to be harnessed for beneficent uses, as we harness electricity
for traction, light and warmth.
It means a study of community resources and their development; of
populations and occupati

ixj)le+i^ -no.tf?
PROCEEDINGS and ADDRESSES
OF THE
FIFTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION
OF THE
State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH
December 1-2, 1914
Compiled by
R. D. W. CONNOR
Secretary
RALEIGH
Edwards & Broughton Printing Co.
State Printers
1915
The North Carolina Historical Commission
J. Bryan Grimes, Chairman, Raleigh.
W. J. Peele, Raleigh. M. C. S. Noble, Chapel Hill.
Thomas M. Pittman, Henderson. ' D. H. Hill, Raleigh.
R. D. W. Connor, Secretary, Raleigh.
Officers of the State Literary and Historical Association
1914.
President Archibald Henderson, Chapel Hill.
First Vice-President Miss Mary Shannon Smith, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President Frank Nash, Hillsboro.
Third Vice-President W. B. McKoy, Wilmington.
Secretary-Treasurer R. D. W. Connor, Raleigh.
Executive Committee.
W. K. Boyd, Durham. Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
James F. Royster, Chapel Hill. Maurice G. Fulton, Davidson.
Mrs. Margaret Busbee Shipp, Raleigh.
1915.
President Clarence Poe, Raleigh.
First Vice-President Miss Minnie W. Leatherman, Raleigh.
Second Vice-President J. G. de R. Hamilton, Chapel Hill.
Third Vice-President S. A. Ashe, Raleigh, N. C.
Secretary-Treasurer R. D. W. Connor, Raleigh.
Executive Committee.
John F. Bruton, Wilson. Howard Rondthaler, Winston-Salem.
A. W. McLean, Lumberton. T. M. Pittman, Henderson.
J. L. Chambers, Charlotte.
PURPOSES OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL
ASSOCIATION.
"The collection, preservation, production, and dissemination of our State
literature and history;
"The encouragement of public and school libraries;
"The establishment of an historical museum;
"The inculcation of a literary spirit among our people;
"The correction of printed misrepresentations concerning North Carolina;
and
—
"The engendering of an intelligent, healthy State pride in the rising
generations."
ELIGIBILITY TO MEMBERSHIP—MEMBERSHIP DUES.
All persons interested in its purposes are invited to become members of the
Association. There are two classes of members: "Regular Members," paying
one dollar a year, and "Sustaining Members," paying five dollars a year.
RECORD OF THE STATE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
(Organized October, 1900.)
Fiscal Paid up
Years. Presidents. Secretaries. Membership.
1900-1901 Walter Clark Alex. J. Feild 150
1901-1902 Henry G. Connor Alex. J. Feild 139
1902-1903 W. L. Poteat George S. Fraps 73
1903-1904 C. Alphonso Smith Clarence Poe 127
1904-1905 Robert W. Winston '.Clarence Poe 109
1905-1906 Charles B. Aycock Clarence Poe 185
1906-1907 W. D. Pruden Clarence Poe 301
1907-1908 Robert Bingham Clarence Poe 273
1908-1909 Junius Davis Clarence Poe 311
1909-1910 Platt D. Walker Clarence Poe 440
1910-1911 Edward K. Graham Clarence Poe 425
1911-1912 R. D. W. Connor Clarence Poe 479
1912-1913 W. P. Few R. D. W. Connor 476
1913-1914 Archibald Henderson R. D. W. Connor 435
AWARDS OF THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUR
1905
John Charles McNeill, for poems later reprinted in book form as
"Songs, Merry and Sad." (Presentation by Theodore Roosevelt.)
1906
Edwin Mims, for "Life of Sidney Lanier." (Presentation by Fabius
H. Busbee.)
1907
—
Kemp Plummer Battle, for "History of the University of North Caro-lina."
(Presentation by Francis D. Winston.)
1908
Samuel A'Court Ashe, for "History of North Carolina." (Presenta-tion
by Thomas Nelson Page.)
1909
Clarence Poe, for "A Southerner in Europe." (Presentation by Am-bassador
James Bryce.)
1910—R. D. W. Connor, for "Cornelius Harnett: An Essay in North Carolina
History." (Presentation by T. W. Bickett.)
1911
Archibald Henderson, for "George Bernard Shaw: His Life and
Works." (Presentation by Lee S. Overman.)
1912
Clarence Poe, for "Where Half the World is Waking Up." (Presenta-tion
by Walter H. Page.)
1913
Horace Kephart, for "Our Southern Highlanders." (Presentation by
Maurice G. Fulton.)
1914—J. G. de R. Hamilton, for "Reconstruction in North Carolina." Pres-entation
by W. K. Boyd.)
WHAT THE ASSOCIATION HAS ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE STATE-SUCCESSFUL
MOVEMENTS INAUGURATED BY IT.
1. Rural libraries.
2. "North Carolina Day" in the schools.
3. The North Carolina Historical Commission.
4. Vance statue in Statuary Hall (to be erected soon).
5. Fire-proof State Library Building and Hall of Records.
6. Civil War battlefields marked to show North Carolina's record.
7. North Carolina's war record defended and war claims vindicated.
8. The Patterson Memorial Cup.
9. Lecture Extension Work started in leading cities and towns.
10. A program of Library Extension Work begun.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Session 7
General Session:
The New North State. By Archibald Henderson 15
Some Argentine Ideas. By R. S. Naon 26
Conference on County History:
Opening Remarks. By Archibald Henderson 39
A New Type of County History. By W. K. Boyd 41
The Vital Study of a County. By E. C. Branson 50
How Can We Secure the Writing of County Histories.
By Miss Adelaide Fries 54
How Can We Secure the Writing of County Histories.
By W. C. Jackson. 56
Conference on North Carolina Literature:
The Projected History of North Carolina Literature.
By Archibald Henderson 59
Henry Jerome Stockard. By J. Y. Joyner 61
The North Carolina Historians. By Stephen B. Weeks 71
North Carolina Fiction. By T. P. Harrison 87
Ballad-Literature in North Carolina. By Frank C. Brown 92
North Carolina Poetry. By Ernest L. Starr 103
North Carolina Oratory. By J. M. McConnell Ill
North Carolina Bibliography for the Year.
By Miss Minnie W. Leatherman 116
Presentation of Gifts to the State. By Archibald Henderson 122
O. Henry Evening:
O. Henry. By C. Alphonso Smith 126
Presentation of the O. Henry Memorial to the State.
By Archibald Henderson 139
Acceptance of O. Henry Memorial. By Governor Locke Craig 141
Members, 1914-1915 142
MINUTES
Proceedings and Addresses of the Fifteenth Annual Session
of the State Literary and Historical Association
of North Carolina
RALEIGH, DECEMBER 1-2, 1914
Tuesday, December 1
—
Afternoon Session.
The Fifteenth Annual Session of the State Literary and Historical
Association of North Carolina was called to order in the Hall of the
House of Kepresentatives, Tuesday afternoon, December 1, 1914, at
3 :30 o'clock, with President Henderson in the chair. President Hen-derson,
after brief opening remarks, announced that the program for
the afternoon session was a Conference on County History. The pro-gram
as carried out was as follows:
1. Opening Address, by Archibald Henderson.
2. "A New Type of County History," by W. K. Boyd.
3. "The Vital Study of the County," by E. C. Branson.
4. "How to Secure the Writing of County Histories." Discussions by
W. C. Jackson, Miss Adelaide Fries, and T. M. Pittman.
At the conclusion of these papers there was a general discussion in which
several members participated.
Hon. Francis D. Winston thereupon offered the following resolutions
which, after debate, were adopted
:
Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by the President of this
Association to memorialize the General Assembly at its coming session to
make an annual appropriation of not less than $2,500, to be expended under
the direction of the North Carolina Historical Commission in the work of
advising with municipal and county officials relative to the proper care,
arrangement and preservation of the public archives and records in their
charge, and of making such records and archives accessible for historical
purposes.
Resolved, That the Executive Committee take immediate steps to organize
County Historical Societies, and that they enlist the cooperation of the De-partment
of History in the University and in the colleges of the State in
arranging a plan for securing a history of each county in North Carolina.
Tuesday, December 1
—
Evening Session.
The session was called to order by President Henderson at 8 o'clock
in the auditorium of Meredith College. President Henderson delivered
his inaugural address on "The New ISTorth State," at the conclusion of
8 Fifteenth Annual Session
which lie presented Governor Craig, who introduced the next speaker
as follows:
We have the honor this evening of having as our guest a statesman who,
though young in years, has made a world-impression in history. He is a
thinker and a scholar. He has done great things for his country, and I
hope that he may continue to guide his great nation. He has not only ren-dered
great service to his own people, but he has rendered great service to
this nation which entitles him to our everlasting gratitude, for he was one
of the arbitrators which kept this nation at peace with Mexico and at peace
with all.
He comes from the greatest nation that has ever existed in South America.
In this hemisphere there are two great republics, one on the Northern con-tinent
and one on the Southern. His nation stands among the foremost for
peace, progress, and civilization.
The destiny of the United States and South America is indissoluble. The
friendly relations between the republics of North and South America not
only means the finest of commercial advantage, but it means the finest de-velopment
that has come to the human race. The day is coming when the
Latin people of the South and the Anglo-Saxon of the North will realize that
their destiny is one to be worked out in brotherhood between these countries.
The distinguished statesman is the foremost representative of the Latin
republics. I have the honor of presenting the Ambassador of the greatest
Southern republic to the greatest Northern republic.
The topic of Ambassador JsTaon's address was "Some Argentine
Ideas." At the conclusion of Dr. Naon's address he was unanimously
elected an honorary member of the Literary and Historical Association.
President Henderson then presented Dr. W. K. Boyd who had been
selected to announce the award of the William Houston Patterson Me-morial
Cup for 1914, saying:
The feature which concludes our program this evening has come to be a
classic event in the North Carolina year. This is the award of the William
Houston Patterson Memorial Cup, the beautifully conceived memorial in
honor of her father, by Mrs. J. Lindsay Patterson, of Winston-Salem.
In past years, the award of this cup has called national attention to the
works of literature being produced in the State of North Carolina. This cup
is awarded each year to that resident of the State who, during the twelve
months from September 1st of the previous year to September 1st of the
year of the award, has displayed, either in prose or poetry, without regard
to its length, the greatest excellence and the highest literary skill and genius.
I take pleasure in calling upon the distinguished historical student, Dr.
William K. Boyd, of Trinity College, who, as representative of the Committee
will make the announcement of the award.
In announcing the award Dr. Boyd said
:
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
Every man of letters in North Carolina who makes local conditions the
subject of his art is in a double sense a benefactor; first, for consecrating
his gifts to immortalizing Tar Heeldom; second, for carrying out his work
State Literary and Historical Association. 9
under the adverse conditions referred to in the presidential address. There-fore
the half dozen authors who have in the past year written books about
North Carolina deserve the laurels of patriots, and on behalf of the Patter-son
Memorial Cup Committee and the Literary and Historical Association
I wish to express our appreciation of their efforts.
Under the adverse conditions referred to by the President, it was indeed
gracious of Mrs. Patterson to establish the Patterson Memorial Cup. Her
patronage insures a careful examination of all books written by residents
of the State and publicity to at least one of them.
Before announcing the award, may I relate a bit of academic history?
Higher education in the United States has been revolutionized since the
year 1870. Professional schools of arts and sciences have been organized
and large universities have come into existence. About the year 1875 an
old aristocratic college in the city of New York felt the new impulse. It
established a chair of Political Science and Constitutional Law. To fill it
was called a man who was Southern by birth, but who had received his col-legiate
education in New England and his professional training in Germany.
He brought to this country those conceptions of the State and of sovereignty
which characterize the political science of modern Germany. According to
his theories sovereignty in the United States has always been in the people;
the nation is older than the States, and manifestations of State rights senti-ments
in our history have been entirely without constitutional warrant. A
more national interpretation of our history can hardly be conceived.
After a few years a young man from New Jersey applied at the college for
a higher degree. His essay was on the Constitution during the Civil War
and Reconstruction. In it he maintained that during the conflict the Con-stitution
was not only violated by executive and legislative measures, but
that it was superseded by war powers, and that during Reconstruction cer-tain
principles of constitutional law were also ignored. In other words, in
establishing nationality, its written charter was violated. There was a
memorable examination; the Dean found fault, and even demanded that a
new edition of the essay be published with corrections. The man from New
Jersey stood his ground, and won the day.
For there was academic liberty in the institution. A few years later that
student was called to his alma mater to teach political theory, then history.
As the institution grew into a great university he offered graduate instruc-tion
in the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This was about the
time that the sons of those who fought in the gray line and the blue were
arriving at maturity. A number of them were attracted by the new field
of historical investigation opened up. Two results followed. One was that
the history department of Columbia became a clearing house for men of
opposite persuasions, a twilight zone in which the most ultra-nationalists
and the most unreconstructed rebels found a mutual human interest and
sympathy. The other result has been the publication of a series of volumes
on the Reconstruction Period in the South; a history of Reconstruction in
Mississippi, one of Georgia during the period, and similar studies of Ala-bama,
Texas, and Florida. These are not essays but stout volumes. They
make the largest contribution to any one period of Southern history.
Thirteen years ago there joined the Columbia group a graduate of the Uni-versity
of the South, with tar on his heels. After the first year he began the
10 Fifteenth Annual Session
investigation of his native State during the Reconstruction period. For
twelve years he has given his best efforts to the task and last summer he
published his results entitled, "Reconstruction in North Carolina." His
work is notable for the following qualities:
In point of style it is equaled in our historical literature only by the work
of Dr. Hawks, who wrote prior to the war. In selection and organization
of material it is modern in tone, combining the topical and the chronological
methods. It is also a contribution to national as well as State history, for
it treats of constitutional, economic, and political movements that were not
confined to North Carolina. His volume also belongs to a notable series, the
"Columbia University Studies in Economics, History, and Public Law."
And now, as the author is too Roman in his modesty to appear on this
stage, I announce that the Patterson Cup this year is awarded to Dr. J. G.
de R. Hamilton for his excellent book, "Reconstruction in North Carolina."
The President then declared the meeting adjourned.
Following the regular session the members of the Association and
their guests were tendered a reception in the parlors of Meredith Col-lege,
by the Woman's Club of Raleigh.
Wednesday, Decembek 2
—
Morning Session.
The session was called to order in the Hall of the House of Repre-sentatives
by President Henderson, at ten o'clock. The President an-nounced
that the subject of the program for this session was "North
Carolina Literature." Papers were read on the following subjects
:
1. "Projected History of North Carolina Literature," by Archibald Hen-derson.
2. "Henry Jerome Stockard; An Appreciation," by J. Y. Joyner.
3. "North Carolina Historical Writings," by Stephen B. Weeks.
4. "North Carolina Fiction," by Thomas P. Harrison.
5. "North Carolina Ballads," by Frank C. Brown.
6. "North Carolina Poetry," by Ernest Starr.
Dr. Maurice G. Fulton announced that Dr. J. M. McConnell, who
had prepared a paper on "JNTorth Carolina Oratory," had been un-avoidably
prevented from attending the meeting, and moved that Dr.
McConnell's paper be published in the Proceedings. The motion was
carried.
President Henderson then presented several gifts to the Association.
His address in making these presentations has been printed elsewhere
in the Proceedings.
At the conclusion of President Henderson's address the following
resolutions were offered and unanimously adopted
:
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association of North
Carolina extend, through the Secretary, grateful thanks in token of their
State Literary and Historical Association. 11
appreciation of the following gifts of literary memorials to the Hall of
History:
1. To Mrs. Henry Jerome Stockard for the autograph poem, signed, by the
late Henry Jerome Stockard, it being the poem dedicated to the Women of
the Confederacy;
2. To Mr. W. L. McNeill, of Wagram, N. C, for the autograph poem, "Told
On," of his brother, John Charles McNeill;
3. To Mrs. William Sidney Porter, for the portrait of William Sidney
Porter.
4. To Mr. Arthur W. Page, Editor of The World's Work, for some sheets
of the original manuscript of one of O. Henry's stories.
5. To Miss Van Vleck, of Winston-Salem, for a letter, and to Miss Marshall
for an autograph poem, of John Henry Boner.
6. To the Misses Margaret J. and Martha A. Steele, of Carlisle, for the let-ters
of Elizabeth Maxwell Steele.
Whereas, The North Carolina Library Commission has rendered great
service to the schools and rural population of the State by the operation of
traveling, debate and other package libraries, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the State Literary and Historical Association commend the
work of the Library Commission and aid it through its Legislative Committee
in securing a larger appropriation for the extension of its service along
these lines.
Whereas, The American Peace Conference agreed at its session in Rich-mond
last December that each State should establish some memorial to
mark the Century of Peace among the English-speaking peoples under the
Treaty of Ghent,
And, Whereas, Sir Walter Raleigh was selected as the most suitable char-acter
for this purpose in North Carolina,
Therefore, be it resolved by this Association, That we heartily commend
Senator Lee S. Overman for his timely introduction of a bill into the United
States Senate, for an appropriation for a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh to be
erected in this city; and we will gratefully appreciate his efforts to secure
its passage during the coming session of Congress, so that we can, at least,
lay the corner-stone in 1915.
And Resolved, That our senior Senator and all Congressmen from North
Carolina are hereby requested and urged to support this measure.
Resolved, That this Association heartily endorse Senate Bill No. 2545, in-troduced
into the "United States Senate by Senator Overman, it being a bill
for the execution of a suitable and creditable painting, depicting the baptism
of Virginia Dare, the first known celebration of a Protestant Christian sacra-ment
on American soil; and urge our Senators and Representatives in Con-gress
to support the same.
Whereas, The members of this Association have heard with sincerest sor-row
of the illness at his home in Wilson of Hon. F. A. Woodard, who, during
the fifteen years of the history of the Literary and Historical Association,
has never before been absent from its annual session, and has at all times
displayed an earnest, unselfish and wise interest in its work, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to express to Mr. Woodard our
regret at his absence, our sympathy in his illness, and our sincere hopes for
the speedy recovery of his health.
12 Fifteenth Annual Session
Resolved, That the Secretary be requested to extend to the Trustees and
Faculty of Meredith College the thanks and appreciation of the State Liter-ary
and Historical Association for the use of the auditorium of Meredith
College for its evening sessions; and to express to the Woman's Club of
Raleigh its appreciation of their courtesy in tendering a reception to its
members and guests.
The following reports of the Guilford County Historical Society and
of the Randolph Historical Society were then presented to the Associa-tion
by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt
:
GUILFORD COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
The Guilford County Historical Association has had no meeting again
this year.
Two papers have been prepared and we have received some valuable old
letters, also a most interesting banner which was presented to the Greens-boro
Guards by the ladies of the town in 1839, the presentation being re-corded
in the Patriot of that day.
The Greensboro Public Library, in which the collection of the society is
kept, has been most fortunate this year in a gift of four portraits, all emi-nent
citizens of Guilford whose descendants have made this very generous
donation to the home of their fathers: Colonel Julius A. Gray, Governor
John M. Morehead, Governor Jonathan Worth, and Governor A. M. Scales.
The homes of Governor Morehead and Governor Scales are still standing
in Greensboro. Governor Worth's early life was all spent in Guilford, though
he was elected Governor from Randolph, where he settled in 1824. These
four portraits were unveiled in the library with appropriate exercises on the
evening of June 6, 1914.
The banner of 1839 was displayed at the time by the Guilford Historical
Association with two other political Greensboro banners of 1840, making an
exhibit of especial interest, since all three were used in the memorable cam-paign
of Morehead and Harrison in 1840. The society contemplates a revival
of its work during the next year.
RANDOLPH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
On the 30th of May, 1914, a dozen or more people met in the County Super-intendent's
office, and organized a society to be known as The Randolph
County Historical Society. It elected for its President, Mrs. Numa A. Thorn-burg,
and Hon. W. C. Hammer, Vice-President; T. F. Bulla, Secretary; Miss
Linnie Shamburger, Historian, and Mrs. S. L. Hayworth, Treasurer. It was
decided at this meeting to meet annually, and discuss historical events rela-tive
to Randolph County. A great deal of interest was manifested in this
meeting, and the outlook is good for interesting discussions in the future.
It was also decided to collect old books, and manuscripts of any nature, and
deposit them in a room in the courthouse known as the Historical Room.
So far, we have a membership of over thirty-five, and by strong effort it
can be increased considerably. The membership fee is fifty cents.
At the meeting held last May, Dr. F. E. Asbury read a paper on the birth-place
of Andrew Jackson. A paper was read prepared by Dr. S. E. Henley
before he died, giving at some length the history of the old plank road, built
three-quarters of a century ago.
State Literary and Historical Association. 13
It is our hope to build up a strong society in Randolph County, and we
would be glad to cooperate with the State Historical Society. We would be
glad to have any suggestions that will aid us in the future.
W. C. Hammer, editor of the Asheboro Courier, is collecting data for a
future history of the county.
Wednesday, December 2
—
Evening Session.
The session was called to order at eight o'clock, in the auditorium of
Meredith College, by the President who presented Miss Minnie W.
Leatherman who read a report of North Carolina Bibliography for the
year. At the conclusion of Miss Leatherman's paper President Hender-son
presented Dr. C. Alphonso Smith in the following words:
Ladies and Gentlemen: We are gathered here tonight to memorialize in
deathless bronze a great literary genius of the New North State. In this
hour of the sublimation of State pride, of the vast awakening of national
consciousness in our commonwealth, an episode typical of this new era is
the erection of a national memorial, executed by a great national sculptor,
Lorado Taft, in honor of William Sidney Porter, endeared to all North Caro-linians,
world-renowned, under the nom-de-guerre of "O. Henry." In the
literary and cultural history of North Carolina the occasion is epochal—for
now, for the first time in all our history, have the people of our State united
in the patriotic task of honoring, in enduring form at the capital of the
commonwealth, native artistic and literary genius. I venture now to ex-press
the fervent hope that this event may prove the forerunner of many
similar tributes to the artistic and literary genius of our people. May there
come to us, as the years flee forward, a communal consciousness that cul-ture
must march hand in hand with agriculture, art with industry, litera-ture
with science in the perfected civilization of the future.
There is something finely and touchingly apposite in this ceremony here
tonight. This memorial is to be accepted in behalf of the State by her
chief executive, a citizen of the very town and county, Asheville and Bun-combe,
where William Sidney Porter sleeps forever in the cool, enfolding
arms of death. And the genius of ''0. Henry" is to be celebrated by a fellow
native of the very town and county of his own nativity, Greensboro and
Guilford.
I rejoice in the opportunity to present to you a great son of North Caro-lina,
distinguished man of letters,—a scholar who as academic ambassador
has borne the message of American culture to the great German empire, the
official biographer of O. Henry, the lifelong friend of William Sidney
Porter—Charles Alphonso Smith.
At the conclusion of Dr. Smith's address the President called for the
report of the Nominating Committee, who reported the following nomi-nations
for 1914-15:
President Clarence Poe
First Vice-president Miss Minnie W. Leatherman
Second Vice-president J. G. de R. Hamilton
Third Vice-president S. A. Ashe
Secretary-treasurer. R. D. W. Connor
14 Fifteenth Annual Session
The nominations were confirmed. The session then adjourned to the
rooms of the North Carolina Historical Commission, where the exer-cises
in connection with the presentation of the "O. Henry Memorial"
were held. The Memorial was presented to the State, in behalf of the
State Literary and Historical Association, by President Henderson.
At the conclusion of his speech the tablet was unveiled by Miss Mar-garet
Porter, after which it was accepted, in behalf of the State, by
Governor Locke Craig.
The President then announced that the session of the Literary and
Historical Association for 1914 was adjourned sine die.
After the adjournment the members of the Association attended a
reception in the rooms of the North Carolina Historical Commission.
State Literary and Historical Association. 15
GENERAL SESSION
The New North State
By Archibald Henderson, President of the State Literary and Historical
Association, Raleigh, on the Evening of December 1, 1914.
In his notorious "History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia
and North Carolina/' which was run in the year 1728, the witty Wil-liam
Byrd of Westover hazarded the ironical query: "Considering
how fortune delights in bringing great things out of small, who knows
but Carolina may, one time or another, come to be the seat of some
great empire?" As I glance back over the two tumultuous centuries
which have elapsed since Byrd ventured that ironical query, and think
of the long, long way we have traveled since that primitive, barren
time, I cannot but conclude that "William Byrd, all unwittingly, was
something more than "the idle singer of an empty day." That "great
empire," of which he so ironically spoke—has indeed found its seat in
this ancient commonwealth of Carolina. It is in the new time that
Carolina has come to be the seat of a great empire of democracy—
a
democracy of culture and of the human spirit.
In the strange, sad epic of the silent South, North Carolina can justly
claim the authority that springs from the motherhood of American
liberty. At the very moment when Byrd was running that dividing
line betwixt North Carolina and Virginia, the borderers were eager to
be included within the bounds of North Carolina, "as there they paid
no tribute to God or Caesar." Those epic ships of Raleigh, sailing west-
Ward over unknown seas 2nd beaching at last their keels upon the golden
sands of Roanoke, bore in their bosoms a breed of men fired with the
divine spark which in that England of the spacious days of Elizabeth
flamed up in rugged prose and in soaring, immortal verse. The breed
of men who settled here bore in their right hand a genius for civiliza-tion
and an indomitable pride of race; and in their left hand an in-flexible
steadfastness and a common sense as firm as adamant. In the
struggle for existence which they were compelled to wage, the taming
of nature, the conquest of a savage foe, there was bred in them a mighty
resourcefulness and the grim hardihood of self-reliance. Our legacy
from a century of pioneers is a passion for successful self-expression,
for efficiency, and for creative conquest. How shorn of a great measure
of distinction and greatness would be this American nation, in its pio-neer
days and crude beginnings, if bereft of the pioneering genius of
16 Fifteenth Annual Session
Daniel Boone, the love of liberty of the eloquent William Hooper, the
prophetic insight of that herald of culture, William R. Davie, the legal
wisdom of James Iredell, the granite conservatism of Nathaniel Macon,
the flaming patriotism of Andrew Jackson, the new Americanism of
Thomas Hart Benton. How impoverished would be the early annals of
our country if there were blotted out the memory of Moore's Creek
Bridge, of Guilford Court House, of Kings Mountain ; of the resistance
to the Stamp Act at Wilmington, the patriotism of Mecklenburg, the
statesmanship at Halifax, the definitive salvation of the vast trans-
Alleghany region by the pioneers of Transylvania. Out of North Caro-lina,
the fountain source of American liberty, welled up the streams
of creative contribution which have helped to make this nation great
the inflexible spirit which knows no compromise, the passionate belief
in liberty and democracy, and the unchanging faith in the worth and
dignity of average humanity.
Midway in her career—a career memorable for national statesman-ship,
continental thinking and purity of thought in public service
—
a dark disaster fell upon the South. Following that tragic national
crisis, when the South in the dimness of anguish beheld the loss of
wealth, the abolition of property, the violation of the very sanctities
of her civilization, this people sternly set themselves to the task of re-pairing
those fallen fortunes and rebuilding that civilization upon
broader and more universal outlines. In the era since the War between
the States the South has achieved a reasonable prosperity distinguished
by its universal diffusion, and has devoted its energies to the education
of the common man to the tasks of leadership in all the avenues of an
advancing civilization.
It was in the earlier grim stages of that era of civilization-rebuild-ing—
the era of the slow emergence of the average man from the pres-sure
of economic necessity and the blight of arrested cultural develop-ment—
that the South temporarily relaxed her hold upon the reins of
national government. Only a decade ago the late Charles B. Aycock
though belying the statement in his own brilliant, tragic career—re-gretfully
acknowledged that at that moment the people of the South
"had less effect upon the thought and action of the nation than at any
period of our history." At that time it was almost literally true that
Southern men wielded but slight influence in the final settlement of the
graver problems of our national destiny. The thinking of the South
was not an appreciable factor in the councils of the nation. The old
aristocracy, with its transcendant leadership of individualism, had
passed forever from the national stage; and the new democracy, fumb-ling
with the complex tools of a newer communism, had not yet wrought
out completely the figures of national leadership.
State Literary and Historical Association. 17
The election of Woodrow Wilson and the quindeeennial anniversary
of Gettysburg marked the transit of an era. "A complete change/' as
Mr. George Harvey recently said, "involving after many years the resto-ration
to power in large measure of this great section has been effected
without causing so much as a ripple of apprehension. Surely it is a
fact of mighty significance that the South resumes virtual control of the
United States after barely fifty years, without evoking from the most
rabid partisan so much as a suspicion of the patriotism or fidelity of
any one of her statesmen." Surely it is a fact of almost miraculous
fitness that, in this dramatic resumption by the South of the control of
our national destinies, North Carolina should play a predominant role.
It is with a sense of conscious elation, no less profound that it is sub-dued,
that we, the citizens of this ancient commonwealth, reflect that
American history can furnish no authentic parallel to the present epo-chal
contribution of North Carolina to the life of the nation. In this
great era of national responsibility and national peril the country
breathes in safety with Josephus Daniels maintaining North Carolina's
great traditions in the navy established by Branch, Badger, Graham,
and Dobbin; with Houston setting new standards of business efficiency
and practical statesmanship for national agriculture; with Simmons
the leader of a Senate; Kitchin the destined floor-leader of the House;
and native and adopted sons like Claxton and Holmes and Osborn
effectively ministering to the educational, industrial, and financial needs
of a nation. In this, North Carolina's hour—the reward of traditional
fidelity to principle in public life, of enlarging social sympathy, and of
invincible faith in democracy—there seems to operate a noble species
of compensatory justice. The nation once more turns for guidance to
the venerable commonwealth of North Carolina, and to the South, the
ancient mother of national leadership.
Do you then realize that this, the age in which we live
—
today—heralds
the golden age of North Carolina and the South ? As we stand upon the
threshold of this new era, there must come to all of us a sense of joyous
elation, a leaping of the blood, that it is given to us to live at such a
time and in such a country. While our sister republic of Mexico is
racked with the dire dissensions of civil strife, which the unselfish devo-tions
of this nation have watchfully and patiently sought to allay;
while Europe is a cosmic holocaust of flame and blood and steel ; while
the commerce of belligerent nations is suffering from partial paralysis
and the voice of famine utters to our heeding ears its grim and tragic
petition—America stands firm for peace, for progress, for civilization,
for humanity. Supreme engineering genius has cleft in twain giant
Culebra and recalcitrant Panama ; and today the lock gates at Gatun,
18 Fifteenth Annual Session
Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores hospitably fling wide the giant portals
of the isthmus to the argosies of commerce, to the trade of the South,
the nation, and the world. As President Wilson said in his memorable
address at Mobile : "I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imagina-tions
have been filled with the significance of the tides of commerce.
These great tides which have been running along parallels of latitude
will now swing Southward athwart parallels of longitude, and that open-ing
gate of the Isthmus of Panama will open to the world a commerce
she has never known before—a commerce of intelligence, of thought and
sympathy between North and South, and the Latin-American States
which, to their disadvantage, have been cut off the main lines will now
be on the main lines.7
' The section sure to receive the greatest develop-ment
as the result of the opening of the canal is the section east of the
Rocky Mountains. The steamer which leaves the South Atlantic sea-board
or a gulf port will steer a straight course from the Panama Canal
to all of the countries on the west coast of South America, The saving
in time, distance, and cost of transportation assures a vastly stimulated
commerce and the interchange of all commodities between the South and
the countries on the Western and Southern coasts of South America. A
happy augury of the increasing reciprocal friendliness and expanding
intercommunication of trade between North and South America is the
presence of our honored guest of this evening, his Excellency, Romulo S.
Naon, the Ambassador of the great republic of Argentina.
The South is America's present land of promise. Here upon our own
soil will be undertaken the next supreme experiment in the life of the
nation. This will be the scene of the next great act in the American
drama of industrial expansion. The thought which gives me comfort,
when I reflect upon the future of the South, is the consciousness that
in this era of expanding wealth and; a pervasive industrialism, the
Southern people still tenaciously hold to those high yet simple realities
which, throughout our history, have won the confidence and the faith
of a nation.
In the hearts of all of us, I dare say, there is a deep, abiding affec-tion
and reverence for the virtues of a people who, throughout an his-toric
past, have given to North Carolina the rich, mellow name of the
Old North State. I sense those ancient virtues as a fragrant breath
from some distant garden of old-fashioned flowers—a full-blooded pa-rochialism
redeemed by the abiding love of Christian faith, of family,
of fireside ; an inflexible integrity which put love of the truth and pas-sion
for the making of men above love of place and passion for the
making of money; a rugged provincialism which had its roots firmly
fixed in a love of naturalness and a scorn for all pretense; a granite
State Literary and Historical Association. 19
conservatism which cherished tradition and ever looked with stern dis-favor
upon the new and the empiric. This is the Old North State
—
always fighting for her rights while neglecting her interests; generous,
reckless, romantic, improvident, unpretentious, chivalrous, "brave. In
our hearts is enshrined the figure of this most venerable, this most
American of all the sisterhood of American commonwealths—the un-pretentious,
homespun, yet infinitely lovable Kip Van Winkle of the
States.
Tonight, my friends, I give you the New North State. From out our
past have come the old Eoman virtues ; into our future shall go the new
American virtues of the new age—an enlarged communal conscious-ness;
a deeper sense of local pride which expresses itself, not in voicing
a glorification of the past, but in putting the shoulder hard to the
wheel of civic progress ; a strenuous common effort for the attainment
of a new freedom, individual, political, and social—for women as well
as for men ; and a passionate, a relentless eagerness for the building of a
new and higher civilization. "We are meeting within the very week
simply eloquent in its title, Community-service Week—a type of the
seven labors of the new Hercules of an aroused civic consciousness
the prophetic vision of that splendid type of the new social publicist,
Edward K. Graham; aided by the practical wisdom of an agricultural
sociologist, the popular leader, Clarence Poe; and happily legislated
into permanence through the fiat of a progressive, forward-looking
Governor, Locke Craig. Only a few weeks ago patriotic, liberty-loving
women of North Carolina appropriately met in the precincts of Meck-lenburg
to write the political charter of a new declaration of inde-pendence.
Out of the fullness of our new life here have gone to other
nations the heralds of American culture. The first Southern scholar
selected to go as Roosevelt Professor, as academic ambassador of cul-ture,
to the German nation, is the distinguished orator of tomorrow
night, Charles Alphonso Smith; and when President Wilson needed a
man big enough for the biggest diplomatic post in the country's gift,
he called upon a great publisher and the editor of our most distinctively
national magazine, Walter H. Page, who is now enjoying the confidence
and winning the plaudits of all in his dexterous management of the
innumerable complex issues evoked by the problems of a titanic Euro-pean
war. Last year we memorialized here North Carolina's first man
of letters of large calibre, whose "Poe's Cottage at Eordham" is part
of the immortal heritage of American and English song, John Henry
Boner; tomorrow morning is to be memorialized the lamented Henry
Jerome Stockard, loved citizen of Raleigh so recently passed away
a poet whose powerful pseans of praise of his section won for him the
20 Fifteenth Annual Session
enviable title of "The Voice of North Carolina." Tomorrow night
we shall gather again in this hall to pay the perfect tribute of art
and praise to North Carolina's first great figure in world-literature
—
after Poe and Hawthorne the greatest master of the short-story
America has ever produced—William Sidney Porter, affectionately
cherished in the hearts and memories of millions under the quaint
pseudonym of "O. Henry." Indeed, when I reflect upon the richness,
variety and texture of the gifts of this New North State to America
and to the world, I am driven to paraphrase the impressive words of
Milton : "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant State rous-ing
herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible
locks; as an eagle renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her un-dazzled
eyes at the full midday beam, while the whole noise of timor-ous
and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter
about, amazed at what she means."
I would not have you think. that, in this chorus of praise, there is no
room in my mind for reservations or for the acknowledgment of grave
deficiencies in our artistic and literary culture. Indeed, the latest re-searches
of science compel the belief that genius is not the result of the
evolution of the masses of the people, but is a giant variation from the
common level of our species.
Whether or not we acknowledge that genius is a spontaneous giant
variation, a sporadic birth of energy not built up from the simple to
the complex, certainly it must be recognized that art, as a factor of
civilization, is an incomparable means of widening intellectual and
spiritual horizons and promoting the cause of culture. It cannot be
denied that the measure of a people's advance in the fine arts is the
measure of their distance from the brutes. Art is not merely an aux-iliary
to civilization; art is almost synonymous with civilization itself.
"Life without art," as Kuskin says, "is mere brutality." And no matter
how remarkable have been the "spontaneous, giant variations from the
common level of our species," it behooves us to take account of that
precious "common level" which, in a true sense, is the measure of civili-zation
in a democracy.
"What is the problem of culture?" asks the remarkable artist and
astute philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. His answer is unimpeachable
:
"To live and to work is the noblest strivings of one's nation and of
humanity. Not only, therefore, to receive and to learn, but to live. To
free one's age and people from wrong tendencies, to have one's ideal
before one's eyes."
Much as I regret to admit it, long and patient observation compels me
to acknowledge that here in the South of the past, here in North Caro-
State Literary and Historical Association. 21
lina, so far as art and literature are concerned, we have not lived and
worked in the noblest strivings of one's nation and of humanity. In lit-erature
and art, for more than a century, we have received; even in a
sense we have learned ; but we have not lived. There be much truth in
the witty definition that penury is the wages of the pen. And at the
Annual Banquet in London of the Royal Literary Fund for the Relief
of Necessitous Authors, Mr. Walter Page recently evoked a chorus of
dissent to his statement : "From the viewpoint of mere barnyard
gumption it is absurd for anybody to start to spend his life writing.
Gambling is more likely to yield a steady income. It is an absurd
career and a foolish foolhardy business. No man has a right to take
it up who can avoid doing so." In making these observations, which
must be taken with a liberal pinch of salt, Mr. Page was undoubtedly
making a humorous personal confession. I may go even further and
hazard the guess that he was thinking of North Carolina. It is a re-markable
commentary upon our civilization that, so far as my knowl-edge
goes, no man or woman in North Carolina, with the omission of
journalists, has ever succeeded in earning, or even attempted to earn,
a livelihood solely through the medium of the pen of the literary artist.
Thus far in our history we have produced no distinguished painter,
no great sculptor, no famous dramatist. In his study on "The Geo-graphical
Distribution of American Genius," published during the pres-ent
year, Professor Scott Nearing does not even consider the State of
North Carolina as a separate geographical unit; and concludes that,
of persons of eminence in the United States today, "an overwhelming
proportion seem to have been born in that section of the northeastern
United States bounded by the Mason and Dixon line on the South, the
Mississippi-Missouri River on the West." I never think of the litera-ture
of my native State that I do not recall the mournful threnody of
that famous bard of our sister Carolina, J. Gordon Coogler
:
Alas for the South! Her books have grown fewer;
She never was much given to literature.
I greatly fear that we do not care very much for reading and for books
in North Carolina—not even for encyclopaedias. I heard not long ago
of an agent who asked a farmer in one of our rural districts if he didn't
want to buy an encyclopaedia, to which the conservative old farmer re-plied:
"Naw, I don't take much stock in them new-fangled machines.
In this neck of the woods we still stick to the old-fashioned horse and
buggy."
Many of you have seen upon University Heights in New York City
a noble structure of gleaming white marble, an enduring monument to
22 Fifteenth Annual Session
American genius, the Hall of Fame. Of the fifty-one tablets thus far
placed upon its ^alls, only one bears the name of a native of Xorth
Carolina, the soldier-statesman, Andrew Jackson; and through the
patronage of Willie and Allen Jones, and the guardianship of Joseph
Hewes, !N"orth Carolina can lay a secondary claim to but one other
name among those of foreign birth, the man whom Benjamin Franklin
dubbed the "Xorth Carolina midshipman," the greatest naval hero in
our annals, John Paul Jones. A soldier-statesman and a sailor—but
no man or woman of literary genius. In the Hall of Fame, the South
is represented by soldiers, sailors, statesmen, jurists, scientists—but by
only one distinctively literary genius—a man of English parentage
who happened to be born in Boston, Massachusetts—Edgar Allan Poe.
For many years I have searched deeply into the causes for the com-parative
dearth of literary and artistic productivity in the South and
for that genial Southern indifference to publication—the rock upon
which literary fame is founded. Tonight I shall dispense with all ex-planation,
apology, or excuse. The thrill of the new time tempts one
less to pathetic retrospection than to buoyant prophecy. Xevertheless,
I must voice my solemn conclusion that we cannot build up here a
great civilization—a civilization as great in art and letters, in culture
and taste, as it is great in material resources, statesmanlike ideals, and
an aroused social consciousness—unless we do live and work in the
noblest strivings of our nation and of humanity. Investigation has
convinced me that Xorth Carolina is lamentably backward, woefully
deficient, in her activity and representation in the great national or-ganizations
making for the development of art, literature, drama, and
all the multifarious influences for artistic culture in a democracy. I
have studied the records of these national organizations for the present
year in the effort to record, faithfully and justly, the part actually
played by Xorth Carolina in the life and work of national culture. I
find that Xorth Carolina is not represented at all in the Xational
Academy of Arts and Letters, or in the much larger body of the Xa-tional
Institute of Arts and Letters; nor has she any official represen-tation,
in the form of elected officers, president or vice-presidents, in
the American Historical Association, the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the American Pageant Association, the Drama League
of America, the American Folk-Lore Societv, the Poetrv Societv of
America, and the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Little if any attention need be paid to those of sectional bias who point
out that no scholar or man of letters, so long as he remains in the
South, ever wins large recognition in the national societies. Such a
narrow charge, even though resting upon indisputable facts, might arise
State Literary and Historical Association. 23
from a complete misinterpretation of those facts ; and in any case can-not
serve as a valid excuse for our supineness and indifference. In
science, pure and applied, North Carolina is nationally and interna-tionally
recognized. In this great branch of knowledge and research,
no Southern State, I dare say, is her equal. But in the arts—litera-ture,
painting, sculpture, drama—North Carolina is not living and
working today in the noblest strivings of the nation and of humanity.
As I have studied the cultural problems of our life here and sought
to make of this association a more constructive instrument for minister-ing
to our cultural wants, I have come to the conclusion that we have
three vital and immediate needs. The program of the meetings of the
Association for this year have been especially designed to meet these
needs.
No people can form a just estimate of their history, or feel legiti-mate
pride in it, until they know what that history really is. No com-prehensive
and complete history of North Carolina will ever be written
until the contribution of the individual units, whose integrated life
have largely constituted that history, are studied and bodied forth with
completeness and detail. The county is the unit of the State; the his-tory
of the county must furnish the nucleus for the history of the State.
North Carolina has exactly one hundred counties; it is a regrettable
fact that histories, of reasonable adequacy, have been written of only
about a dozen out of these hundred counties. I earnestly desire to
identify this Association with the duty and the task of stimulating, in-spiring
and directing the writing of the industrial, social, economic,
institutional histories of every single county in North Carolina. The
accomplishment of this great work will prepare the way for the writing
of the true and definitive history of North Carolina—the moving story
of the life of a great people.
In like manner, I desire to see our people acquire a decent and ade-quate
knowledge of the literary contributions of North Carolina for the
past one hundred and twenty-five years. Nietzsche defines man as a
something to be surpassed. And surely we can never rise above our-selves
to ourselves in literature until we really feel and know what
North Carolina has contributed in letters to the thought and conscious-ness
of the American people. As the county is the unit of the State,
so the State is the unit of the nation. In the noteworthy words of the
South's greatest living novelist, James Lane Allen:
There must in time and in the natural course of events come about a com-plete
marshaling of the American commonwealths, especially of the older
American commonwealths, attended each by its women and men of letters;
with the final result that the entire pageant of our literary creativeness as
24 Fifteenth Annual Session
a people will thus be exhibited and reviewed within those barriers and
divisions which from the beginning have constituted the peculiar genius of
our civilization.
When this has been done, when the States have severally made their pro-foundly
significant showing, when the evidence up to some century mark or
half-century mark is all presented, then for the first time we, as a reading
and thoughtful self-studying people, may be advanced to the position of
beginning to understand what as a whole our cis-Atlantic branch of English
literature really is.
It has been my great ambition to have this Association take account
in an orderly way of the manifold sides of our State literature—his-tory,
poetry, fiction, oratory and folk-lore. Out of the fundamental
principle of our government and institutions, the principle that the
country is a nation of States, there comes the recognition that our
literature, with all its humanity and its provinciality, is a national
literature made up of the contributions of the individual States. This
explanation of our American literature lies at the basis of our whole
democratic civilization.
Lastly, I have one recommendation to make to this Association and
to the people of North Carolina. It is to no Brahmin caste of scholars,
to no occupants of the ivory tower of literary seclusion, that I would
make this recommendation. I appeal to the communal consciousness
of a people—a people who, individually and collectively, need to be in-spired
with a deep sense of historic tradition and the passion of a great
faith in the destiny of our commonwealth. I desire to see spread be-fore
our people the entire pageant of our historic creativeness—as I
have seen great pageants of the history of Oxford University and of
the development of the martial power of the British Empire, now so
terribly taxed upon the battlefields of Europe. Pageantry has been
defined as poetry for the masses. We deeply need to see created in
North Carolina, through the common efforts of our leading citizens, a
fine art for the people. The elemental instinct for democratic art in
our midst needs to be educated, developed, refined, by means of popular
pageantry, into a mighty agency for civilization. I recommend that,
during the coming year, historic episodes of State and national interest
be presented by common effort in communities throughout the State.
May I suggest, among others, for Wilmington the revolt against the
Stamp Act; for Edenton, the Ladies' Tea Party; for New Bern, the
Settlement of the Palatines; for Winston-Salem, the founding of the
Academy; for Charlotte, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence;
for Salisbury, incidents from the careers of Daniel Boone and the
pioneers; for Greensboro, the Battle of Guilford Court House. Next
year, during Community-service Week, all of these episodes which
State Literary and Historical Association. 25
have been locally presented and perhaps others should then be linked
together in a great State Historical Pageant here in Raleigh, the capital
of the commonwealth—arranged in chronological order and designed
to give a poetic and romantic picture of the historic evolution of the
life of a people. Through this happy wedding of art and history may
be brought home to our consciousness a profoundly moving realiza-tion
of a glorious past and a quickening of our desires and hopes and
labors for an even more glorious future.
In conclusion, let me remind you that we celebrate here tonight the
fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the State Literary and His-torical
Association of North Carolina. In an address delivered at the
University of North Carolina exactly seventy-five years ago, the elo-quent
Hugh McQueen used these prophetic words: "No association of
practical service to the interests of Literature and Science now exists
in the State of North Carolina ; no public-spirited Society, which might
serve to hedge in by its active and beneficent care the sensitive and
fragrant flowers of genius which spring up within our borders ; which
might serve to incite matured intelligence to active operation for the
public good, which might stimulate youthful talent to essay the strength
of its own pinions; which might preserve from oblivion many interest-ing
facts and productions which are occasionally exhibited in the inter-course
and operations of life, and which might disseminate extensively
among the people, such literary documents and productions as would
renovate the aspect of letters in this department of the Union, and
convert our present dreary surface into a Literary Arcadia." Sixty
years after these striking words were uttered, there was founded here
this remarkable Association which has already fulfilled many of the
functions so sedulously set forth by the cultured McQueen. If it has
not, as yet, wholly succeeded in converting our present dreary surface
into a Literary Arcadia, certainly it has helped to arouse the cultural
consciousness of the State as it has never been aroused before in our
history. And let us hope that through the stimulation and encourage-ment
of the fine arts, the influence which emanates so effectively from
this already distinguished Association, we may look in the future for
the growth of a national and international spirit of culture which shall
enable us the more effectively to live and work in the noblest strivings
of the nation and of humanity.
26 Fifteenth Annual Session
Some Argentine Ideas
By Hon. R. S. Naon, Argentine Ambassador to the United States.
I know of no occasion where it would be more timely for me to speak
on my country than on this, so kindly tendered to me by your associa-tion,
and there is no subject I consider more appropriate for reaffirming
our characteristic as a people of ideals than that which I have chosen
for my address to you today: "Some Argentine Ideas."
It is not my aim to treat this subject from the standpoint of a doc-trinarian
in constitutional law, but rather to present to you as clearly
and comprehensively as time and circumstances will permit, the senti-ments,
the principles and the ideas which underlie the formation and
development of the political entity called "The Argentine Republic."
These sentiments, these principles and these ideas have continued to
be maintained and have inspired and assured our progress through all
the vicissitudes .of our organic life. They were the permanent aspira-tion
of the Argentine people until they became crystallized into the pre-cepts
of our wise constitution, into the system of legislation which rules
the regular life of the Republic, into the characteristics of our social
life and of our civic activity, and, finally, into the action of profound
liberalism which has always distinguished our international political
conduct.
The Argentine citizen lives his life under the domination of a senti-ment
of national pride and self-esteem which he cannot overcome and
which some might consider and have already considered as a manifesta-tion
of hypertrophy of personality. I beg of you to excuse this weak-ness,
if you note it in me, when I say that I entertain the hope that
when I conclude my brief exposition you will find justification for the
aspiration which every Argentine citizen entertains when he believes
as a national conviction that it is our manifest destiny to make of the
country, by the endeavor of her sons and the moral cooperation of man-kind,
a democracy of the highest social and political distinction.
The Argentine Constitution was the product of hardships extending
over a long period and it has, therefore, consecrated all the social ideals
which agitated the Argentine spirit from the moment the idea of our
political emancipation was born.
We cannot begin the development of the subject without first taking
up the preamble of that Constitution. It dominates and embraces,
giving utterance thereto with eloquent simplicity, all those hardships
which have not yet disappeared in spite of our achievements and which
State Literary and Historical Association". 27
maintain in the national spirit the eager desire to realize the aspirations
which have not yet been fulfilled, or to improve to the utmost what are
already a part of our national qualities.
This preamble represents the most authentic expression of our aspira-tions
to form an organic social entity, and makes of our Constitution
rather than a body of more or less strict rules of conduct, a body of
principles, an enunciation of political ideals. Its elasticity and, there-fore,
its capacity of evolution is so great as to enable it to satisfy all the
social tendencies which appear to have been imposed by mankind upon
the political organization of modern nations. All the exigencies of good
government, all the necessities of a wise and fruitful social administra-tion,
are to be found there directing the organic national life with the
irresistible force always encountered in principles for peoples who live
of, by and for them. All the impositions of the social moment and all
the demands of the spirit of the times find there also a possibility of
adaptation to those principles applied to the development of the activi-ties
of a people with sufficient moral and intellectual capacity to under-stand
them, to interpret them and to practice them.
We have already lived for seventy years under the guidance of our
Constitution and have formed in its observance our political habits, and
have inspired in the spirit of its provisions the achievement of our civic
ideals.
But the long and arduous road traveled has served solely to strengthen
it and cause it to continue to be as at the beginning, with the same in-tensity,
the highest and most perfect source of our patriotism, as well
as the instrument for the adequate working out of all problems affecting
our political life.
It might also be said that for an Argentine does not exist the moral
possibility of applying his activity as a citizen in the life of the nation,
without bearing in mind the idea of the Constitution and of its prin-ciples,
which impose themselves on his understanding and on his will
as the beginning and as the end of his action. By this I mean to say
that as a matter of fact the first sentiment of an Argentine, the highest
expression of his patriotism, is respect for the Constitution, a respect
which is almost fanatical and which forms in his mind the notion of a
wrong when its principles are violated.
This notion, when extended to all citizens, produces as a result a
national civic morality in the masses which prompts them to make any
personal sacrifice for the moral prestige of the country. This sentiment
is so predominant that even in the course of our international life has
it spontaneously appeared. It also produces a constant demand of the
people upon the government, and becomes a permanent control of public
28 Fifteenth Annual Session
opinion upon all public officials as well as upon the action and conduct
of their statesmen. Hence it has become a characteristic, even more, a
need, of the Argentine "Public Man" to sound the very depths of the-national
conscience in order to adjust to its dictates his directing con-duct
in public life.
It is for this reason that the Argentine "Public Man" is, wherever
he may be exercising his activities and in spite of the physical distance
which separates him from his country, an instrument of his people for
the realization of the organic aspirations which dominate them and is
an interpreter of their capacities and collective desires. His individual
personality does not exist. His personal aspirations are submerged in
his devotion to his country. His obsession is to reflect the national per-sonality
which he feels in himself as a citizen and as a public official.
Hence, also this other sentiment which dominates the "Public Man" as
a necessity of his life, namely, forgetfulness of self, which our great
"Public Men" have practiced to the utmost, seeking to make them-selves
worthy of harboring the only absorbing passion of which their
moral conscience is capable, the pride of recognizing in themselves a
genuine Argentine incarnation.
Both sentiments, that of collective Argentinism which characterizes
our masses and that which distinguishes and determines the life and
action of our "Public Man" have been embraced in the Constitution,
and especially in its preamble, in the recognition of the fact of a "na-tional
entity," an "Argentine people," and the necessity of the "Public
Man" to interpret that people, and to fulfill its precepts in creating for
that purpose the idea of political representation. The preamble of our
Constitution begins with the following words which are full of meaning
to one acquainted with the historical development of our Republic : ""We
the representatives of the people of the Argentine nation," that is to
say, "We who are vested with authority emanating from the only sover-eign
entity constituted by the 'People' of the Nation.' " Observe, gen-tlemen,
the preexisting notion of a "Nation" ; the notion and the senti-ment
of an "Argentine people"; the notion and the sentiment of a col-lective
entity with an organic life which manifests itself through that
other personal entity "We," that is to say, the "Public Man," an in-stitution
created in our democracy as a consequence and as an organ
of the representative system, and whose dignity and importance and
whose authority are based on that other entity, the sovereign entity
"People"—the "Public Man" who devotes himself without reservation
to the service and the glory of the "People."
The touchstone which we have had in order to bring to ourselves the
realization of the virtues of our Constitution has always been that
State Literaky and Historical Association. 29
drafted by the great framers of your Constitution of 1787, and when-ever
we wish to show clearly in the analysis of ours this idea of a pre-existing
"National Personality/' we place beside those opening words
of our preamble the words of the preamble of the American Constitu-tion
: "We, the people of the United States." Note the difference. In
both is present the collective idea : the existence of a people ; but in one
of them the "Public Man"—"We the representatives"—acts, discharging
the representation of the "People" who have previously at a constituent
convention designated them to organize the forms of the government
which was to rule thereafter the organic life of a "Nation" which had
been in existence ever since independence had been attained.
In the other, the people of the States are those who act, they them-selves
framing the Constitution inasmuch as its force is subject to their
approval, and the "People" not of an existing "Nation," but of sov-ereign
States which sought to establish a closer union. The former or-ganize
a "Nation" which had already existed through the organ of
their "Public Men," vested originally with the "national sentiment"
which inspires them, in their patriotic labor, with the recollection of
glories and hardships experienced during the period of forty years of
"national" sacrifices. The latter, the plenipotentiaries of autonomous
entities, seek a constitution not inspired by a "national" sentiment,
which did not exist, but to form a "union" later to be converted, not-withstanding
any local sentiment, into a "national" entity by the
strengthening of the "more perfect union" which the sanction of the
Constitution assured.
Both Constitutions conformed to the political necessities of each
people, and the words of the two preambles reflect the diversity of those
necessities : "We, the representatives of the people of the Argentine
nation," and "We, the people of the United States" ; and both at the
same time that they express two different political sentiments, also ex-press
two constitutional ideas which are likewise different.
The Argentine Constitution expresses in the words quoted the senti-ment
of the "Nationality" which has always maintained in all minds,
even during periods of internal dissension, the constitutional idea of
national unity. On the other hand the American Constitution expresses
in the words quoted, not the sentiment of a "nationality," but the senti-ment
of the locality, the sentiment of the local state which was at the
same time the constitutional idea on which its federalism was based.
And so two federal republics like that of the United States and that of
Argentina show their different origin, one evolving by the union of its
different entities toward "national consolidation," and the other evolv-
30 Fifteenth Annual Session
ing toward the organization of the local governments, in order to satisfy
the regional exigencies of the constitutional idea of "national unity."
The political sociologist will find another essential sentiment which
has always constituted one of the most fundamental and characteristic
principles of our national organization. I refer to a profound liberalism
which has always been reflected and has become a constitutional idea
and an Argentine principle of legislation. It has also prompted, aside
from the manifestations of internal organic life, the broad and generous
Argentine international policy closely observed even at times and under
circumstances which tended little to the preservation of a disinterested
and altruistic policy.
This sentiment is expressed in the same preamble when in setting
forth the purposes of the representatives of the people in enacting the
Constitution, it says : "To constitute the national union, guarantee jus-tice,
assure internal peace, provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and assure the benefits of liberty for ourselves, for
our posterity and for all men of the world who wish to live on Argentine
soil."
This was without doubt a clear expression of the social tendencies of
our revolution of independence which established from the first moment,
together with the abolition of slavery, the principle of political equality
of all men born in our territory, that of equality of civil rights for all
inhabitants, whether natives or foreigners. There is no constitution
which establishes as a fundamental principle that humanitarian ten-dency
for the entire system of legislation more broadly than the Argen-tine
Constitution.
The exercise of the activity of a man and his . liberty when the
achievement of his own welfare and aspirations is involved, is limited
only by the exercise of the activities and the liberty of others without
any distinction other than that emanating from the difference in their
personal capacities. This humanitarian sentiment has always prevailed
in our tendencies, in our customs and in our laws. At the same time that
it recognizes and practices that all men are created equal, it makes of
the consideration and respect arising from this equality a sentiment
of human fraternity, which in turn gives rise to that real social and
political democracy that makes all also equal in benefiting by oppor-tunities
in proportion to the capacities and virtues of each, and likewise
the country as a whole as the result of the free and fertile activities of
those individual capacities and of those virtues.
Such is the nature and character of the Argentine democracy, of that
Argentine democracy which is not only a principle of our internal politi-cal
organization, but also an inborn sentiment in our life as an inter-
State Literary and Historical Association. 31
national entity, a sentiment which instills in us a feeling of absolute
equality in our relations with all the nations of the world, and, conse-quently,
the consciousness of our duties in the work of civilization and
human progress.
It is for this that in the same manner that the principle of democracy
is the foundation of our political organization, the sentiment of inter-national
democracy is the foundation of our international policy. This
principle is so closely associated with our personal activity as citizens
and our international activities as a sovereign people, that even a casual
observer could easily note it even in the most inconsequential mani-festations
of our individual or collective life. The sentiment of political
equality and of social equality of an Argentine citizen in his relations
with others is like the sentiment of international equality of the Argen-tine
Republic, a sentiment which does not admit either of neglect or
indifference, not to speak of ignorance thereof. It is a sentiment under
permanent tension, an aggressive sentiment whose powerful dynamic
force characterizes and defines the entire movement and development
of our system of legislation and all the pride of our national character
which is as intense as our respect for the rights of other peoples and
the generosity and altruism characteristic of our foreign policy. This
sentiment is responsible, furthermore, for the spirit of optimism which
characterizes our people, instilling in them the firm conviction that
there is nothing which cannot be overcome by our efforts, that there is
no ideal which cannot be attained by our will.
This principle of our activity as citizens was expressed, long before
the enactment of our Constitution, by our greatest political sociologist,
the author of the "Socialistic Dogma of the Revolution of May," in
these words, which before their enunciation were an instinct of the civic
action of every Argentine, and afterwards a gospel, the feeling for and
observance of which constantly grew : "Men have no real value in
politics except as artisans for the production or realization of social
ideas. We do not conceive any progress for the country except under
the condition that the initiative in thought and social action be taken
by the best and most capable; and by the best and most capable we
understand those who represent the purest virtues and the highest in-telligence."
Together with these instincts of moral eminence which characterize
the permanent ideal of an Argentine as a citizen, there springs the pro-found
knowledge of our national greatness which has also been an in-born
patrimony of our thought and was expressed with the same candid
conviction when we came to independent life, or when we were succeed-ing
in the struggle for national organization, or at the present moment
32 Fifteenth Annual Session
when we feel a personality already vested with attributes of all kinds
to act in the front rank with the most advanced in the struggle of civili-zation.
In brief, I might affirm that the essential idea, the basic idea of our
political life, the principal Argentine constitutional idea, is "Democ-racy."
Democracy founded on an unshaken conviction of equality and
civic fraternity and of equality and international fraternity, and de-veloped
upon a representative system of government which at the same
time that it recognizes the superior existence of a "People" with aspira-tions
and a "National" consciousness, form also a basic element, the
Argentine "Public Man," representing all the moral ideas of that
"People," developing his directive action as an interpreter of the popu-lar
conscience and exigencies, the visionary of a glory which only the
patriot and the democrat can feel, the glory of achieving a name, no
matter how modest, in the history of the progress of his country.
This essential idea rests likewise on the basis of a preexisting col-lective
instinct, the instinct of nationality, but stimulated by the neces-sity
of individual realization which animates our constitutive elements
determining the conscience of the citizen, and by the necessity of par-tial
collective realization, which led to denning, more and more, after
our independence, the life of the local entity of our Argentine provinces.
The sentiment of local autonomy which underlay the internal struggle
for its recognition and which after becoming defined and strengthened
during 40 years of efforts and untold hardships, was recognized by the
framers of our fundamental charter, was as a matter of fact the origin
of this other constitutional idea—Argentine federalism—which was
affirmed as the principle on which our politico-administrative organi-zation
was to be based. This other Argentine constitutional idea was
adopted not as the result of a capricious and theoretical speculation,
but as the result of a popular sentiment which had overcome all pre-vious
efforts at organization that had failed to recognize it.
There can be no democracy where ignorance reigns, ignorance not
being compatible with the morality and the ideals which are essential
elements of democracy. Nor can there be a democracy, or at least it
cannot produce the organic political activity indispensable in the stimu-lation
of national life, when civic indifference prevails, diverting the
citizen from his interest in public affairs or keeping him from the polls
where the powers of the government are organized and the scope of its
action fixed as called for by the national interest. Hence, two more
constitutional ideas : compulsory primary education and the compulsory
vote. They have not been in fact literally prescribed by the fundamental
State Literary and Historical Association. 33
charter, but they have been imposed by it in principle, and fully regu-lated
and defined by special legislation.
Compulsory primary education seeks to equalize as far as possible
the mental capacity of our citizens in order to place them in such posi-tion
that the civic life of the country may not be turned over to the
blind passion of more or less self-interested bosses, but may develop
rather as a consequence of a direct consideration of the problems con-cerning
the life of the nation by the average mental capacity of the
masses.
By the adoption of the compulsory vote it has been sought to remove
the dangers of civic atony. Among us compulsory common education
has always prepared our citizens for the struggle of life, giving them
the means of obtaining a more or less broad understanding of the gen-eral
notions essential in modern society to efficient action. The com-pulsory
vote is impressing upon them the need of familiarizing them-selves
with the principles which personify national "Public Men," with
the exigencies of the policy and administration of the country. In this
way they are able to influence the action of those "Public Men," com-pelling
them, either to define their principles by discussion in the elec-toral
campaigns, or to apply them in official positions, and enabling
them to control the action and correct the errors of the government by
an intelligent and patriotic opposition.
These principles are supplemented : compulsory education, by the re-moval
of every religious influence from the public primary school, thus
leaving the work of forming and developing a religious sentiment to the
family and home ; the compulsory vote, by providing for a secret ballot
in order to avoid the corruption which might result from weakness
of character in the voter.
Our Constitution has recognized to such a degree the impossibility
of attaining our democracy except upon the basis of the mental prepara-tion
of the citizen, that it has provided in one of its provisions relating
to the political existence of the "Federal States," the requirement that
their local constitutions assure administration of justice, municipal gov-ernment
and primary instruction therein as a condition precedent to
guaranteeing them the enjoyment and the exercise of their institutions.
All these antecedents are the result of a sentiment of fruitful liberal-ism
which has always controlled the development of our organic life.
It has injected into every constituent or legislative act a principle of
activity and progress so intense in its nature that more than once it has
brought us to the point of considering respect for the administrative
or political traditions as contrary to the interests of the nation. It
might also be asserted that the only tradition which persists in the
3
34 Fifteenth Annual Session
Argentine mind as a force of permanent inspiration, and which cannot
be overcome, is the tradition of the glories and ideals of the revolution
and of the principles which gave them birth.
Perhaps an explanation of this peculiar circumstance may also be
found in the fact that that revolution put an end to the non-political
existence of the people and to a public administration organized upon
the principle of the absolute power of kings. The revolution created
a new state of affairs which did not find in that previous situation a
single base for expansion. Tradition, therefore, instead of constituting
for us the starting point for subsequent progress, signified rather a nega-tion
of the principles of the revolution which was based on liberty and
equality of men and of peoples, that is to say, upon the new principle
of the revolutionary democracy, which, as our great sociologist says
:
"Leveling all conditions, it tells us that there are no other differences
than those established by the law for the government of society; that
the magistrate, outside of the place he discharges his functions, is
merged with other citizens; that the priest, the soldier, the lawyer, the
merchant, the artisan, the rich and the poor are all alike; that the
lowest of the masses is a man equal in rights to others and carries im-pressed
on his forehead the dignity of his origin; that only probity,
work, talent and genius produce superiority; that one engaged in the
smallest industry, if he have capacity and virtues, is no less than the
priest, the lawyer or any other who devotes his faculties to some other
occupation; and, in brief, that in a democratic society the only ones
worthy, wise and virtuous and entitled to consideration are those who
contribute with their natural efforts to the welfare and prosperity of
the country."
We had been living for three centuries under the dead weight of an
almost religious respect for tradition and of the infallible authority
which the old political doctrines imposed; while the moment called for
the application of the forces which have gone to make up the strength
of democracy as a political principle. They called for a continuous
action of reform, for the exercise of all the mental and physical activi-ties
of man, because, as a matter of fact, movement in every aspect of
social life is the essence and the reason of democracy. Hence, there-fore,
this sentiment of profound liberalism which has always character-ized
our organic life, a sentiment which spontaneously exerts its influ-ence
throughout our social activity. It finds its reflection not only in
our internal legislation wherein are established all the broadest doc-trines
which human thought has evolved in the matter of individual
rights, but also in its strengthening of the principles of liberty and
equality.
State Literary and Historical Association. 35
A consequence of this essential principle is found in the fact that
Argentine life develops and has always developed looking about and to
the future, rather than back to the past, and in the midst of the strug-gle
which leads to triumph, rather than to the consideration of what
has already been attained.
The individual rights corresponding to the Argentine liberalism con-stitute
in reality the patrimony of every citizen, and a democratic or-ganization
like ours could not but adopt them in the broadest form
and assure their exercise with the integrity necessary to produce the
favorable social effects which spring from free and salutary individual
action. It is for this reason that the principle which establishes the
political equality of all citizens and the civil equality of all inhabitants,
as well as the guarantees thereof, has found scrupulous expression in
our fundamental laws and regulations.
This idea has been incorporated as a principle in the Argentine Con-stitution.
It prescribes that all inhabitants of the nation enjoy the
following rights subject to the laws which govern their exercise, namely
:
To work and engage in any lawful occupation; to navigate and engage
in commerce ; to petition the authorities ; to enter, sojourn in, pass
through and leave the territory ; to publish their ideas through the press
without previous censorship; to use and enjoy their property; to asso-ciate
for useful ends ; freely to profess their religion ; to teach and to
learn ; and as a guarantee of the exercise of these rights the same Con-stitution
has proscribed all prerogatives based on blood or birth as well
as the existence of special privileges or titles of nobility, and has pro-claimed
equality as the basis of taxation and public charges ; it has pro-claimed
the inviolability of property; it has guaranteed to the author
and inventor the exclusive ownership of his work, invention or discovery
for a reasonable time commensurate with the general interests; it has
proscribed forever from the Argentine penal system the confiscation of
property; it has established that no armed body can make requisitions
nor demand aid of any kind; it has established that no inhabitant of
the nation can be punished without previous trial in pursuance with a
law antedating the act for which he is tried, nor be tried by special com-missions,
nor be removed from the jurisdiction of the judges designated
to try him by a law antedating the act, nor be compelled to testify
against himself, nor be arrested except on the written order of a com-petent
authority. It has proclaimed the inviolability of the defense in
court of persons and rights, as well as the inviolability of domicile and
of correspondence and private papers; it has abolished forever the
penalty of death for political causes, and as to its penal institutions it
has recorded as a constitutional principle the idea that the jails of the
36 Fifteenth Annual Session
nation must be sanitary and clean and be used for the custody of and
not for punishing the unfortunate inmates thereof, holding the judge
who authorizes them responsible for any measures which, under the pre-text
of caution, tend to mortify them beyond the requirements of such
custody. And, finally, it has assured the absolute moral independence
of all its inhabitants, guaranteeing the principle that the private acts
of men which in no wise offend order or public morals, nor prejudice
third persons, are reserved solely to God and exempt from the authority
of magistrates.
Beside the principle of equality of rights and as a correlative thereof,
it has always been an Argentine idea that every citizen bears the re-sponsibility
of the national defense, and, therefore, that it is his duty
to take up arms in its behalf. This constitutional idea has been guar-anteed
by the enactment of laws which establish the principle of com-pulsory
military service for the organization of the national army and
navy, constituting, in conjunction with the principles of compulsory
primary education and compulsory universal suffrage, the three corner-stones
upon which the entire structure of Argentine democracy rests,
that is to say, the mental and moral vigor, together with the civic ca-pacity
and the defensive strength which constitute combined the guar-anty
of the organization, the practice and the maintenance of demo-cratic
institutions.
I have already said that another of the great Argentine ideas, consti-tutional
in fact because it has its existence in the ground-work of our
national system as well as in the mind itself of the Argentine people, is
that which springs from the humanitarianism peculiar thereto. It
strengthens and develops to the utmost the sentiment of our national
personality, and recognizes and respects as well the principle of the sov-ereign
equality of other nations, practicing, not for the sake of con-venience
which never determined the action of privileged organisms,
but on account of the moral necessity which dominates our life, the
principle of international democracy which has at every moment of our
history inspired our foreign policy.
This principle has not been only recognized by its enunciation in the
preamble of the Constitution, when it assures the benefits of liberty to
all men of the world who desire to inhabit Argentine soil, as well as to
ourselves as to our posterity. It has also inspired the Argentine policy
respecting the foreigner, whether manifested either in the enactment
of positive law, in international relations, or in the negotiation of
treaties and conventions. The Constitution and the laws have declared
the principle that foreigners enjoy in the territory of the nation all the
civil rights of a citizen; it has likewise recognized the principle that
State Literary and Historical Association. 37
the navigation of the inland waters of the nation is open to all flags;
it has prescribed the obligation of the federal government to cement its
relations of peace and commerce with foreign powers by treaties con-forming
to the principles of onr public law; and, finally, it has thrown
open the doors of all our moral and material activities to the foreigner
without further restrictions than those called for for the exigencies of
our social preservation, in establishing as an obligation of the federal
government the promotion of European immigration and in forbidding
it to adopt any measure tending to restrict, limit or encumber with any
tax whatsoever the entrance into Argentine territory of foreigners who
come with the purpose of tilling the soil, improving industries or in-troducing
and teaching the arts and sciences.
It is unnecessary to tell you that an evidence of the faithful applica-tion
of these principles is shown by the hundreds of thousands of men
who annually come from all civilized nations to our shores to establish
their homes among us and to take advantage of the opportunities of-fered
by our natural wealth and our laws to men of good will.
This liberalism, which has always been an essential factor in the
development of our organic life and has always determined our legis-lation
and our policy, has not found expression solely in the precepts of
our Constitution or in the provisions of our laws. It also characterizes
each period of our diplomatic history in so eloquent and so efficient a
form that it constitutes one of the most certain elements of judgment
for the study of the tendencies and characteristics of the Argentine
people. This history shows that the Argentine people is an organically
pacifist people, a people which as an element of civilization and of
progress has the powerful intuition that only with the prevalence of
peace and good will among men, and peace and good will among nations,
is it possible for their ideals and aims to be maintained.
Resort to arms has never attracted their predilections, and if they
have more than once been compelled to accept it as an inexorable and
inevitable necessity, they have not done so either to seek a benefit or to
procure an advantage, because they have never conceived any benefit
or advantage which could spring from the misfortune or from the pros-tration
which war entails. It is only the unavoidable exigencies of the
national dignity or the integrity of our institutions which could compel
it to accept the calamities and consequences of a war. But war itself
has served to reaffirm how intense and deep is our liberalism.
Another manifestation of our liberalism may be found in the propa-ganda
which our country has been conducting for international arbitra-tion
as a means of settling disputes between nations, adopting a formula
which is at the present time the highest perfection of that system. One
38 Fifteenth Annual Session
of the most illustrious statesmen of my country thus had occasion in
1880, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, to affirm that arbitration had al-ways
been a noble and constant aim of our people, and that "the Argen-tine
government can show its adherence for a long time to that prin-ciple
which wisely considers both the interests of justice and the altru-istic
requirements of humanity." In fact, since 1856, when the Argen-tine
Republic concluded with Chile her first arbitration treaty for the
settlement of boundary questions pending at that time and such others
as might thereafter arise, our efforts to bind ourselves with all other
countries of the world through compulsory arbitration, have not ceased
for a single day.
I cherish the belief—perhaps in my pride as an Argentine—that it
is the recognition of the moral conscience of my country, rather than
her enormous economic vitality that now and always has won for her
the esteem and respect of the civilized world.
Gentlemen, I must now conclude, but not without taking this oppor-tunity
to thank you for the honor you have bestowed upon me in in-viting
me to address you, and to express the admiration we feel for the
illustrious founders of the American Union. From them our heroes
got the most profound political inspiration. They became for us an
example and a model of republican virtues and democratic ideals, and
the Constitution they framed guided in great measure the glorious ex-pansion
of our forces in this strenuous march towards the highest pos-sible
culminations, a fatiguing but steady march but to which we are
forced by the record of our past, the vigorous achievements of our
present, and the energy of our aspirations for the future.
State Literary and Historical Association. 39
CONFERENCE ON COUNTY HISTORY
Opening Remarks
By President Archibald Henderson.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I welcome you here today most heartily. I
feel that we are assembled to consider what I regard as the most vital
and immediate problem in historical investigation now confronting our
people. No people can form a just estimate of their own history, or
feel legitimate pride in it, until they know what that history is. And
I venture the assertion that no comprehensive or complete history of
North Carolina up to any given point in time will ever be written until
the contributions of the individual units, whose integrated life have
constituted that history, are studied and bodied forth with completeness
and detail. The county is the unit of the State; the history of the
county must furnish the nucleus for the history of the State.
There are three phases in the study of the county history which
should, I think, be considered today.
First and foremost, we must endeavor to arouse historic interest in
every county of the State, and further the efforts of local investigators
and local historical organizations to secure, while there is yet time, or at
least to locate and catalogue, such material of historic interest as may
be in private hands—diaries, letters, papers, documents, manuscripts,
etc. I would point to my own native county of Rowan which has re-organized
the Rowan County Historical Society; its quarters will
be in the great new community center, the historic courthouse, now
handsomely remodeled. An elaborate history of the county is now pre-paring;
and it is probable that a new and greatly enlarged edition of
Rumple's "Rowan" will also be published in the near future.
The second problem is the task of the examination and calendaring
of the public records in every county in the State. For this purpose
legislative appropriations, running over a series of years, will be re-quired
to cover the cost of a trained historical expert. Such an his-torical
expert would examine every record book and every bundle of
manuscripts in every county courthouse, make a card catalogue of all
materials which deserve to be catalogued, and eventually collate all
such card catalogues in publishing a full calendar of all the county
records in the State. A duty no less important than that of cataloguing
materials would be the preparation of a report on the way in which the
records are kept, and a recommendation of some uniform method for
40 Fifteenth Annual Session
indexing the records and keeping them on file in such a way as to be easy
of access to historical students.
The third problem is the very pressing and vital problem : What type
of county history do we really want here in North Carolina ? The most
scientific and exhaustive history of any county I have seen, of the
modern type, is the "History of Lake County, Illinois/' by Prof. John
J. Halsey, of Lake Forest University, whose people, by the way, lived
in Chowan for more than a century until his grandfather moved away
from Edenton in 1806. I have brought this county history, a quarto
volume, here with me; its length, 872 pages, will show you how much
may be said—and how well it may be said—about a county. My own feel-ing
is that our new county histories should be brief, concise, yet com-prehensive
in scope. On February 10, 1857, Governor Swain sent out
a circular letter in which he said : "To attain uniformity in the series
of county histories—perhaps a better plan cannot be suggested than to
make 'Wheeler's Sketches of North Carolina' available to the purpose."
Today the effort should be made to get away from the old type of genea-logical,
political and martial county history, with its glorification of
family, its accentuation of the military record, and its dreary catalogue of
officials with corresponding dates of service. What is needed today, I
would venture to suggest, is a new type of county history, which tells
in brief, concise and readable form the story of the life of the people—
industrial, racial, social, economic, institutional; one which ruthlessly
omits umbrageous family trees, and reduces the political and martial
phases of county history to the true scale of proportion in the picture.
I would suggest that a board of editors, with authority to act, should be
appointed by this body, whose function it shall be to stimulate the
writing of histories in every county in the State, and to furnish a model
guide for a county history.
State Literary and Historical Association. 41
A New Type of County History
By William K. Boyd, Ph.D., Peofessor of History in Trinity College,
County history has a twofold interest. One is purely local, the con-cern
of a family in its genealogy, of a raconteur in notable events of
the neighborhood, and of citizens in the political, social, and intellectual
antecedents of their environment. The other interest of the subject is
derived from its relation to state or region, the way in which it may
illustrate and visualize the evolution of that unit of which the county
is only a digit. The first of these interests has dominated the writing
of county history from the days of Wheeler to the present,1 yet I feel
safe in saying that even from the purely local point of view, in no in-stance
has the history of any county been exhaustively treated. The
second phase of county history, its integration in the life of a section
or of a state, is more difficult to comprehend and to portray. It has
not been done, with the exception of a few incomplete contributions.
Believing that a combination of the two interests, the local and the
state or regional, is possible, I take the liberty of saying a few words
concerning the content of a county history written with such a purpose,
some of the sources which are available, and some ways in which such
kind of investigation may be encouraged.
I.
Mr. Nash has well said that Orange County in its genesis was "with-out
form and void." 2 Consequently the first task of a county historian
is to describe the resources of the county, its geological formation, soils,
fauna and flora, minerals, and drainage, pointing out the influence of
these earthy factors on the life of the inhabitants. A most helpful
guide to the information for such a chapter is Laney and Wood's Bibli-ography
of North Carolina Geology, Mineralogy and Geography.3
This opening chapter should be followed by a discussion of the origin
of the county, with full particulars of the causes and process by which
it was chartered. At the very inception of the county its integration
with general political history begins; recollect, for instance, the con-troversy
in colonial days between the Governor and the Assembly con-cerning
the right of incorporation, the significance of an expanding
frontier, and the sectional controversy of the east and the west. These
have been powerful factors in the organization of our counties; unfor-iWheeler:
Historical Sketches of North Carolina (Philadelphia, 1851).
2Nash: History of Orange County, Part I (N. C. Booklet, X, No. 2).
3Bulletin of the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey (Raleigh, 1909).
42 Fifteenth Anistuae Session
tunately the information about their relation to the incorporation of
specific counties is hidden away in the colonial records, the legislative
journals, and the manuscript archives of the State.
Logically there should follow an account of the early inhabitants,
the Indians and the whites. The early settlements should be analyzed,
showing the racial origins and the influence of racial traits upon later
history. Nor should the matter of genealogy be neglected, for it is of
far greater than local importance. I dare say that every person in
North Carolina who is in any way identified with local history has re-ceived
many letters of inquiry from people in other states who are
anxious to trace their North Carolina ancestry. Most of these in-quiries
are in vain, because the gentle art of genealogy is almost un-known
among us. Therefore the county historian should give an ex-tended
list of the early settlers, let us say down to the year 1815, when
the migration to the southwest and the northwest was well under way.
The significance of such a genealogical survey is realized when we
recall that in the early days of Georgia and Alabama the first political
cleavage was not so much over political principles as the rivalry of the
elements of their population, notably between the North Carolinians and
the Virginians in Georgia. The local historians of the southwestern
states tell us in just what regions the Carolinians and the Virginians
settled; but who can say which sections of North Carolina furnished
most of the immigrants? True, Iredell County gave to the far west
a Kit Carson, to Tennessee Hugh L. White, while from Mecklenburg
and Wake went James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson to Tennessee.
Alabama is indebted to Sampson for William R. King, to Mecklenburg
for Israel Pickens, to Robeson for John Murphy, to Stokes for Gabriel
Moore. Georgia acquired John Clarke from Wake, Jared Irwin from
Mecklenburg, and William Robinson from Halifax. But which coun-ties,
rather which section of the State, furnished most of the supporters
of Governor Clarke in his memorable campaigns against Troup and
the Virginians living in Georgia? Moreover, why did so many North
Carolinians leave the State of their nativity? What was the effect of
this migration on progress and leadership at home? Somewhere and
somehow our county records should tell ; yet the only investigation of
this phase of the history of a single county, so far as I know, has been
made by a resident of Alabama.4
There are other possibilities in the analysis of population that have
not been realized. For instance, one of the leading pacifists of the
country has recently declared that in the Civil War the best physical
and mental types of manhood in the South were lost, that the hard task
of industrial and intellectual recuperation was left to a generation far
4Mamiscript by Hon. Thomas M. Owen, Montgomery, Ala.
State Literary and Historical Association. 43
inferior in quality to that which was living in 1860. The facts on
which he bases this conclusion are derived from a study of two counties
in Virginia and one in Georgia. 5 I wonder if a conscientious county
historian in North Carolina, unbiased by pacifist ideals, would come
to a similar conclusion?
From the population it is natural to turn to some of the forces that
shape the life of a community. The one most slightly treated in the
average county history is religion. Perhaps the historian is unduly
impressed with denominational jealousies and theological controversies,
and deems reticence on the matter of church history the only way to
be optimistic. However, he should not fail to realize that religion in
its origin is closely related to the social instinct, the desire of mankind
for companionship. It is therefore not accidental that in the settle-ment
of this country the church existed long before the day of the
schoolhouse, the lodge, the Farmers Union, or the modern club. More-over,
the rules of the churches reflect the attitude of the community
on such matters as marriage between members of different denomina-tions,
traffic in slaves, Masonry, dress, and amusements. Therefore
the church records of the county should be diligently sought and ex-amined.
They will reveal standards of conduct and thought that have
passed away, and will suggest many traits of mind and character of the
early inhabitants. Moreover, some of the significant movements in the
history of religion in the South began in North Carolina, such as the
first educational movement, the first periodical, and the first camp meet-ing
among the Methodists. James O'Kelly, the earliest champion of
individualism in religion in the South, was born and died in Chatham
County. The rise of the Missionary Baptists is of more than state or
county significance, while the leaven of Calvinism did much to estab-lish
academies and colleges. Who can tell to what extent county history
might add to our knowledge of these forces, important in the history
of Christianity in the South as well as the State?
Economic conditions have also been a powerful factor in shaping the
life of a people. North Carolina has always been notable for the va-riety
of its industrial activities, the absence of any solidarity of eco-nomic
interests, and a resulting lack of unity in political sentiment.
Yet economic development has received slight account in our county
histories; in none of them have all the available sources been used. I
therefore take the liberty of making the following suggestions for the
treatment of the economic development of a county.
There were four stages in the economic evolution of a pioneer com-munity,
represented by four types of inhabitants : the hunter or trapper,
the hog ranger, the farmer, and the miller and manufacturer. If pos-
5Jordan: War's Aftermath.
44 Fifteenth Annual Session
sible the course of these stages of development in the history of the
county should be traced. Here written records are apt to fail but land-marks
often tell the story. The old trails may show the course of the
retiring trapper, the names hog run, horse pocosin, etc., the grazing
ground of the herdsman, while land grants and deeds indicate the advent
of the farmer. Visualization of these processes in the settlement of our
country is always helpful to those interested in state or national history
;
it also adds color and value to the narrative for those interested in
purely local affairs.
Much more detailed information may be had and is desirable con-cerning
the last stages of industrial development, the agricultural and
manufacturing. From the angle of state and national, as well as
purely local affairs, studies of the following topics would be of in-estimable
value: the average size of farms in various epochs of the
county's history, the number of slaves and the nature of white tenancy
prior to 1860, the products and the method of marketing them, and the
agricultural changes since 1865. Likewise the rise of manufactures
should be traced from the grist and lumber mills to the modern factory.
The whole subject of economic history, county by county, is full of
possibilities, for the economists and the sociologists are more and more
deserting their theories for the study of industrial transformations in
small communities or units. Yet in none of our county histories can
there be found an analysis of the ante-bellum plantation system or docu-ments
illustrating plantation life. In fact, the only documents illus-trative
of agricultural conditions in the South prior to 1860 and the
only study of the agricultural transformation since 1865 have been pub-lished
by students of general or of state history residing beyond the
confines of North Carolina. 6
The topics thus outlined do not by any means cover the field of county
history but they do illustrate the blending of state or regional and
local interests. However, they must be treated cross-sectionally, for
the history of a county must follow the grand divisions of national his-tory,
the Colonial, the Eevolutionary, the Federal, the Civil War, the
Reconstruction and the contemporary periods. To make more concrete
and definite my conception of county investigation, I take the liberty
of outlining in detail one cross-section, the period of Reconstruction.
The history of the county from 1865 to 1876 should discuss the follow-ing
subjects
:
I. Economic Conditions.
A. Loss of men and property during the war, based on censuses of
1860, 1870, 1880 and local sources; shifting of population.
6Phillips: Plantation and Frontier, Vols. I and II of Documentary History of American Indus-trial
Society. Brooks: The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia, 1865-1912 (University of Wisconsin).
State Literary and Historical Association. 45
B. Break up of the plantation system, as shown by the census and
local records, the rise of white and colored tenancy, the resulting
change in products, debts and mortgages, and if possible the influ-ence
of the Freedmen's Bureau and the legislation of 1866 on labor.
C. The rise of manufactures to 1880; pointing out the nature of
manufactures in 1860, 1870, 1880, the new industries, influence
of foreign capital if any; the rise of new towns; the number, sex
and wages of the employees.
D. Transportation: The railways in 1860, 1870, 1880; if any in-crease,
the method by which attained.
E. White and negro population, 1860, 1870, 1880.
II. The Churches During Reconstruction.
A. The number, denomination, and membership in 1860.
B. Membership during the war and during Reconstruction; changes
in customs.
C. Separation of the races; rise of the negro church.
III. Educational Development.
A. Public and private schools in 1860.
B. Appropriation for schools during the war ; fate of the iacademies
;
collapse of the ante-bellum school system.
C. The revival of the public school.
D. Academies since the war.
E. Rise of the negro school, public and private.
IV. County Government.
A. The Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions from the opening of the
war until its abolition in 1868.
B. Special governing boards, if any.
C. Rise of the modern form of county government under the Con-stitution
of 1868.
D. The advent of city charters.
E. State courts and military courts during Reconstruction.
V. Secret Organizations.
A. Background ; the Ereedmen's Bureau ; military government ; eco-nomic
and social changes.
B. The Red Strings and the war societies.
C. The Union League.
D. The Ku Klux.
E. Operations of the societies; methods, political activities; riots
or outrages ; investigations ; decadence.
46 Fifteenth Annual Session
VI. Political Development.
A. Party alignment in 1860 and 1861.
B. Political activity during the war; legislative, gubernatorial and
Confederate elections.
C. The Convention of 1865, the gubernatorial and legislative elec-tions
of 1865.
D. Parties and elections of 1867.
E. The county in the Convention of 1868.
P. Politics, 1868-1876.
VII. Sketches of Leadeks in Politics and Industry.
This outline for the Reconstruction period of county history is more
than experimental and tentative. It has been used with good results
at the University of Mississippi and at Trinity College in this State. 7
The possibilities of county history in other periods might be sketched,
as, for instance, in that profound industrial and social transformation
since 1876. However, as this chapter borders on the domain of that
newest and most fascinating of the social sciences, Rural Economics and
Sociology, I refrain, and pass on to the next division of my remarks,
the question of bibliography for county history.
II.
The principal sources may be classified as manuscript and printed.
Each group deserves some consideration.
A. Manuscript.
I. The county archives, consisting of the proceedings of the Court
of Pleas and Quarter Sessions and its successor, the board of county
commissioners ; the deeds in the register's office ; the wills filed by the
clerk ; the tax lists on the sheriff's books, etc. These have been compared
by Mr. ISTash to the dry bones in the incomparable vision of Ezekiel,
which the "historian's enlightened but restrained imagination" may
clothe "with sinews and flesh and life." They are of inestimable value
to the genealogist and the biographer ; they also indicate the section of a
county first settled, the intellectual and economic character of the settlers,
the course of roads, the construction of bridges and mills, litigation, and
the growth of wealth, the truth or falsity of traditions, and numerous
facts unexpected and undreamed of by the searcher after truth. How
little have they been used ! A gentleman actively engaged in county in-vestigation
ventures the assertion that "not in an old county of the State
has every record been perused from its establishment to 1850." One
of the paramount needs is a manual of methodology for county archives
7See Publications of the Mississippi State Historical Society, Vols. XI, XII; Papers of the Trinity
College Historical Society, Series X.
State Literacy and Historical Association. 47
which will give a summary of the kind of material that one may ex-pect
to find in each class of archives, the best manner of taking notes
and making cross-references, and the relation of the archives of the
county to those of the county or counties from which it was formed,
and other pertinent matters.
II. The legislative, executive and judicial archives, the manuscript
records in Kaleigh in the' offices of the Governor, the executive officers
and the Supreme Court,—a vast array of petitions, rejected bills, official
communications, letters, account books, military rosters and court
records, which have never been classified or indexed. Some day, let us
hope, the State will realize their value and have them arranged and
calendared. Until then every investigator, whether of county or general
state history, must fish in troubled waters.
III. Records of churches, institutions, and societies. These are of
course of miscellaneous character and vary from county to county.
A search must be made for them. Let me illustrate the danger of over-looking
them. Several years ago the history of a county was written in
which there were a few remarks about its anti-slavery sentiment. Un-known
to the writer there existed in that county the minutes of one
of the most remarkable anti-slavery organizations in the entire South,
containing enough material to make a chapter in themselves. But they
were unknown to the author, and that chapter in the county's history
remained to be written.
IV. Private correspondence; diaries, account books, plantation
records, etc. How often are these destroyed. A few years ago the per-sonal
effects of one of the contractors who helped to build an important
railway in IsTorth Carolina were sold by his executors. A fine chest
of drawers was bought; the purchaser, finding it full of papers and let-ters,
emptied the contents on the ground and burned them. Who can
tell the loss thus sustained to the history of Rowan County?
B. Printed Sources.
I. Laws of North Carolina, sessional. These contain a vast amount
of information that has never been thoroughly explored. For example,
in the private acts can be found the licenses to build roads and bridges,
the charters of academies, manufacturing companies and Masonic
lodges, provisions for local government, taxation, patrols and care of
the poor, the foundation of libraries, the holding of courts, and numer-ous
other matters which interpret life in the past. A complete file
of the laws is rare, hardly to be found except in our larger libraries.
Moreover there is no general index to them. Some patriotic citizen
with an antiquarian taste could place all local historians under a lasting
48 Fifteenth Annual Session
debt of gratitude by publishing a calendar of the material for county
history in the public and private laws.
II. The Public Documents of North Carolina are also a Yast store-house
of information, the publication of which was begun in 1836.
They contain the reports of the State Treasurer and Comptroller, mes-sages
of the Governors, reports of railway and plank road companies,
and of committees. In the Comptroller's reports can be found the
amount of taxes paid by each county, in 1854 the value of lands county
by county, in 1856 and after the amount of local taxes, and in 1863 the
first valuation of slave property. The appropriations for public schools
and the condition of the banks are also given in the Comptroller's Re-ports.
A complete check list of the contents of the public documents
relating to counties is, I think, impossible ; but there is a valuable help
to their use in Bowker's "State Publications."
III. The Journals of the Legislature are also important, for in them
can be traced the attitude of the county's representatives on such im-portant
measures as railroad bills, public appropriations, resolutions
concerning State's rights and slavery, personal liberty and constitutional
questions during the war, as well as purely local matters. The same
may be said for the journals of constitutional conventions.
IV. Records of church bodies, churches, lodges, commercial organi-zations
and societies of various kinds.
V. Publications of the United States Government, notably the
Census, the "War of the Rebellion Records, the Ku Klux Report, the
Report of the Reconstruction Committee, and the reports of the en-gineers,
which contain a vast amount of information relating to eco-nomic,
social, military and political history.
VI. Newspapers. A file of a county newspaper, when available,
bears to the historian the same relation that a rich vein does to the
miner of gold. Unfortunately files are rare, there being few in the
State Library prior to 1880. I wish that some librarian with an anti-quarian
interest would make a check list of the North Carolina news-papers
in the libraries of the State, of educational institutions, and of in-dividuals,
and also those in the great collections of the North and West.
Let me add that some of the national papers in the old days contain
valuable information regarding local affairs in North Carolina, notably
Niles' Register.
III.
Finally, how can the cause of county history be aided? Let us re-member,
first of all, that the historical, like the literary impulse, cannot
be grown by hothouse methods ; it obeys no law, and like the wind, it
blows where it listeth. I will go further and assert that history is a
State Literary and Historical Association. 49
branch of literature, one of the arts as much as poetry and fiction. It
has, however, this distinction, that while it is an art in its purpose, its
method is scientific. Herein lies the opportunity of an organization
like the State Literary and Historical Society to be of service; it may
furnish an outline and guide for gathering and organizing material;
in other words, we can formulate a method for county history work,
which, we may hope, will attract now and then the genius of the
literary artist. I therefore suggest that this Society appoint a com-mittee
to prepare a guide for the study and writing of county history
in North Carolina. Such a work, when made accessible to classes in
American history, literary clubs, libraries and individuals, may, in the
providence of the muses, bring results in more numerous and more
comprehensive county histories. In one other way can this organiza-tion
be of service. It can give, each year, right of way in its program
to studies in county history. Such a policy will assure recognition for
investigators of county history; it will also give a permanent and solid
value to the society's publications.
50 Fifteenth Annual Session
The Vital Study of a County
By E. C. Branson, Peofessoe of Rueal Economics and Sociology in the
Uniyeesity of Noeth Carolina.
In prefatory way, I desire to congratulate the State Literary and
Historical Society upon the rare vision and wisdom of its plan to as-semble,
interpret, and preserve in worthful, literary form the history
of North Carolina, county by county.
The consciousness of well characterized group-personality is strong
in North Carolinians ; so strong that it is strange and astonishing to
people in New England, Minnesota, Illinois and other States where our
annual Carolina Day and Community-service Week have so greatly
challenged attention and comment. It is less strange in California,
Kansas, Kentucky or Virginia, where a similar pride in the home State
has always been an informing force in individual and civic development.
Love of State is not a childish, trivial something; it is an indispensable
factor in the building of character.
Denmark is a conspicuous modern instance of local patriotism as a
national asset. The thing that most impresses a visitor in the Danish
Folkschulen is not the agriculture or the home economics, but the local
folk-lore, the home-bred myth, song, and story, the chronicles of Danish
heroism, patriotism and achievement that fill the teaching of literature
and history to overflowing.
Denmark is recited and sung in every class every day. Her agricul-ture
is wonderful, but her blazing national consciousness goes further
toward explaining her rise into greatness in the last half century. Dan-ish
patriotism is not narrowly parochial and provincial. It is intense,
but it is broadly intelligent.
The Carolina Day exercises in our schools impress visitors from other
States in quite the same way. "I am sorry to say there is nothing like
this in my home State," said a New Englander in North Carolina on
the fourth of last December.
Be it said to the honor of North Carolina, there never was a time
when a North Carolinian could be a gentleman and be ignorant of the
history of his mother State. Familiar, loving acquaintance with the
home county and the home State is a necessary foundation for effective
citizenship.
THE REAEWAED LOOK.
The vital study of a county is the study of what is vital in a county.
It is a study of the big, main things, the causal, significant, conse-
State Literary and Historical Association. 51
quential things in community life. Things that are trivial and super-ficial,
incidental and inconsequential have small place in such a study.
If so be they indicate the characteristic mood, humor or temper of a
people, they have a very large place in an interpretative study; but not
otherwise.
First of all, it ought to begin with the rearward look. What the
county was day before yesterday is related to what it will be day after
tomorrow. What lasts on and on in any community grows straight out
of the nature of human nature in that community.
An understanding of the economic, social, and civic life of a county
or a country calls for acquaintance with the historical background;
with origins, resources, advantages, obstacles, occupations and indus-tries,
racial strains, noteworthy events and achievements, localities and
memorials, with community-building leaders, with notable, noble per-sonages
and their contributions to the industrial or spiritual wealth
of the county. The field under survey ought not to be cluttered up with
trifles light as air, however interesting or appealing to family pride.
A county history now on my desk well illustrates what a county his-tory
ought not to be. It is big and bulky, exhaustive and exhausting.
It is descriptive merely. It is crowded with trivialties that signify
nothing; with names and places, items and details that were not worth
recording. They confuse one's sense of values. They lead into no con-clusions
large or small. It is occasionally interesting and charming.
It is full of things curious, fantastic, and bizarre; but hardly worth
one's while for instruction or inspiration. It is, I may say, one of the
many histories of the New England Berkshires.
THE round-about and the forward look.
But the vital study of a county also calls for the round-about and
the forward look. It is a homespun study of community forces, agen-cies
and influences, tendencies, drifts and movements that have made
the history we study today and that fatefully are making the history
our children will be studying tomorrow.
It is examining the economic and social forces that operate in the
small, familiar area of the home county. They are forces that have
something like the steady, fateful pull and power of gravitation or any
other natural law. They are creating opportunities or obstacles. They
are making or marring community life. They need to be definitely
known and to be harnessed for beneficent uses, as we harness electricity
for traction, light and warmth.
It means a study of community resources and their development; of
populations and occupati